


Can't You Hear It?

by Watergirl1968



Series: Voices In The Bone [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Comfort, Corpses, Description of violent death, Eremin - Freeform, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, Rough Sex, Spanking, canon-divergence, eruri - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 00:44:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1799263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watergirl1968/pseuds/Watergirl1968
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin sits up. A cold moon sends a slice of light through Eren's loft window. It's still early spring, and it's cold. He's got on extra socks, a thick nightshirt and a grey wool knitted cap on his head. In a while, the sun will rise and the sounds of daily life will ground him, offer him their rhythm and distract him from the murmurs beneath his skin, the shivers of ancient dreams reawakening; the voices in the bone.</p><p>"Something is not right," he says softly. And he means that nothing is right; not the subtle changes in his palate, the way colours now appear to him, the way books whisper to him. Even his skin smells different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Voices Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Both Armin and Levi become attuned to inner messages they receive; intuitions which might give them, and humanity, a much-needed edge in their struggle against the titans.
> 
> And yeah, of course, a good dose of naughty.

It's not the same as being ill. He's had influenza. He's broken a few bones. This is different. First, there is the fever; persistent, parching and making his skin shiver as though he's been flayed. Then, there are the sores; these are nearly gone, and they will leave faint scars on his body; echoes of the horror that is their time on earth. He's twenty. He should be studying and shagging and developing a fondness for single malt or travelling or boats. He shouldn't be curled up in a small wooden bed, overwrought and underfed. Aching. 

Armin sits up. A cold moon sends a slice of light through Eren's loft window. It's still early spring, and it's cold. He's got on extra socks, a thick nightshirt and a grey wool knitted cap on his head. In a while, the sun will rise and the sounds of daily life will ground him, offer him their rhythm and distract him from the murmurs beneath his skin, the shivers of ancient dreams reawakening; the voices in the bone.

"Something is not right," he says softly. And he means that nothing is right; not the subtle changes in his palate, the way colours now appear to him, the way books whisper to him. Even his skin smells different.

Eren is sitting in his armchair, looking out of the window, silent. The moonlight ices his profile, catching the even rise and fall of breath. Armin watches him, in awe of this stubborn, hard-headed, straightforward and tender man that has struggled to hang onto his sanity and soul for most of his life.

Perhaps because he's so worn out, or perhaps because he finally feels safe enough to do so, Armin weeps. Eren's calm visage, looking down onto the silent paddock, fills him with a tender reverence that can't be put into words.

He doesn't know Eren has risen until he is beside the bed. Without a word, he lifts Armin into his arms and carries him back to the chair. He sits down, and Armin curls into his warmth. Eren pulls the little wool cap from Armin's blond head, placing his lips to the soft hair.

"You'll always be little to me," he says softly, "even when you're a little old man."

___________________________________

A hot spring runs beneath the compound, giving off a silent steam. Some ancient builder must have known this, and that is the reason that a tiled bath was built beneath the rotunda. Commander Smith is aware that it's only a matter of time before this becomes common knowledge, so he has resolved to enjoy the heat and solitude of the swim bath, for whatever precious days or weeks remain to him.

A stairway leads from the bath to the two offices and three rooms which comprise his quarters. He smirks to himself, gliding silently through the water, like a battered Odin. Perhaps on those grounds, this bath can remain his exclusively.

His exclusively.

Static energy follows Levi through dark places. Years of hypervigilance have made true and utter relaxation nearly impossible. He comes to the pool's edge, pale and weary.

Slowly, he undresses, stiff fingers pushing buttons through their loops. He sits at the edge of the pool, unwinding linen tape from his wrists, and ankles. Four of his toes are taped. Two are bent. It is only his immense tolerance for pain that keeps him upright and fluid in motion. The years have ground him down and he aches and hurts in ways he never thought possible. 

He'd always imagined his body would one day betray him, shrivel and fail, bright mind locked inside. It's not supposed to be other way around; images, names, foreign tongues and outlandish images crowding his dreams and threatening to tip him off his guard just enough that he will make a fatal error.

For years it was dank whispers in stinking tunnels and alleyways; now, it's voices in the bone.

He sinks into the water; the heat is so exquisite that he nearly moans with relief. He pushes off from the edge of the bath, floating in its centre; the dark, secret, silent space soothing open wounds that no one can see.

He makes unhurried circles around the pool's perimeter; around Erwin, who is standing waist deep against the pool's edge, head tilted back, eyes closed. Levi swims silently, allowing the world to close in, warm and womb-like. 

He doesn't know why the voices have come. He does, however, think he knows how they have come. They have eased in through the door he opens every time he abandons himself utterly to Erwin Smith.

He swims closer, brushing against Erwin with a hand, then a foot. Erwin waits. He waits for his soldier to become fully, utterly unwound by the warmth of the spring.

Levi drifts close to him, bumping against his front, limbs circling Erwin weightlessly, not yet committed. 

They don't speak, but both part their lips as though a word might be exchanged at any moment. Their mouths touch, still softly open, like sweet wounds. 

Erwin's thick forearm slides under Levi's bottom, pulling him against his torso. The other arm winds around his upper back, the hand cradling Levi's dark head. Levi clings, like a child; he lays his head on Erwin's shoulder, arms encircling his neck.

Slowly, the Commander strides out of the hot water, his sweet, boneless waif in his arms.

"Tell me," he murmurs, cradling his lover as he walks slowly up the stairs to his chambers,  "what shall it be tonight, my angel?"

 

 


	2. Dreamscape

"Oi!" Armin kicked the chair of the clerk seated in front of him, "Captain on the floor!"

Startled, the clerk scrambled to his feet, pulling a crisp salute as Captain Rivaille entered the rotunda library. 

"Huh," Armin grumbled crustily, "Protocol's gone to hell in a handbasket around here these days."

Armin saluted his superior, drawing himself up tall.

"At ease," Levi's familiar soft, deep tone.

The clerks and assistants in the rotunda resumed their purposeful bustle. Armin put his pale head back down, assuming Levi had come on some business involving the Commander. A small scrap of paper landed on the desk in front of his nose. He raised his head to see Levi leaning on his desk, looking drawn. 

"What does this number mean?" Levi gestured to the scrap of paper.

Armin unfolded it. It was a sequence of scribbled digits. 

"Sir, I can't say off the top of my head. Where'd this come from?"

"It's something I've…remembered. This number is important, but the reason eludes me. I need to know what this number means.

"Hmmm," Armin read, "50.0586. Shoot, Captain, it could be anything. A measurement. An archive. An address. Did you ask Hanji, too?"

"I'm asking you, Arlert. You are the person who knows what it is. I had a….a dream, so to speak, which told me so. You'll be able to figure it out."

Armin tucked the scrap of paper into his pocket. "Is that right? What was I uh, _doing_ in this dream of yours, sir?"

But Levi had already turned on his heel and stalked off.

______________________________________

In spite of himself, Armin puzzled over the scrap of paper when he should have been attending to other tasks. Levi had given him precious little to go on. 

That evening, he entered the stables where he shared a billet with Eren. Eren and Sasha Blouse managed the Survey Corps' stables in addition to their assignments as part of Levi's squad. 

Eren had a small loft room at the east end of the stables. It was sparse, hot in summer and chilly in winter, but it was home. Armin showed Levi's note to Eren, wondering if the number had to do with Eren himself; with his ability to titan-shift perhaps, or with one of the innumerable experiments Eren had been subjected to over the past five years. 

"That," said Eren proudly, "is the precise length of my dick."

"In what, microns?"

Which resulted in Armin being pulled bodily into bed by his hair.

______________________________________

Night. A cool slice of moonlight shone in through the single, round window which illuminated Eren's room. 

Armin was dreaming. In the dream, Eren pulled him onto the bed by his hair and fucked him, just as he had actually done before they'd slept. Only in Armin's dream, Eren had been rougher. He'd forced Armin onto his belly, lips sucking hungrily against the nape of his neck, teeth closing with sweet skin between them, hard enough to bruise. When Armin had whined and squirmed, Eren had smacked his bottom hard. It had stung, and so had the harsh slaps to his thighs which left them angry and pink and burning. 

"Mine," Eren had growled in his ear, only it wasn't Eren's normal voice, but his titan-form's. _"Mine…"_ the word was a primordial, savage sound.

Armin had struggled some more, because he wanted the sting of Eren's hand again. Eren spanked him so hard that tears pricked his eyes. The burn made Armin shudder, a delicious ache pooling between his legs.

He tried to say something, but his lips wouldn't work. He wanted to gasp, and then to yelp, as he felt Eren's lips and tongue trace the knobs of his spine, and then Eren's hot, open mouth sucking at the skin of first one blazing cheek, then the other. Armin wriggled, which only enticed Eren to bite the firm little mounds harder.

Armin was caught in a haze between pain and pleasure, finally opening his mouth like a drowning man coming up for air, and gasping,  _"Oh, fuck, Eren, please!"_

Eren placed his hands under Armin's hipbones, raising his ass up higher. Delicately, he licked the sore red marks he'd left on his boy's cheeks. Armin shivered as his balls tightened pleasurably.

Then, Eren's hot tongue slid between his cheeks, dancing against the little pucker it found there.

 _"Ah - no, no!"_ Armin was mortified, trying to worm out of Eren's grasp, but Eren held him like a vise. He screwed his eyes shut as the wet, clever tongue lapped at his little hole, drawing tiny sounds from his throat. Then it plunged inside him, twisting so deliciously that he began to sob,  _"Er-Eren!"_  

Eren nipped his bottom again, holding him still for a few frenzied heartbeats before sliding his tongue deep inside Armin again, soaking and softening him. 

Eren drifted back up alongside Armin, tongue being replaced by a thick, calloused finger that swirled maddeningly at his pink pucker. 

Eren's lips were behind Armin's ear now, nuzzling into the damp, pale hair.

"Pixie," he teased softly, pressing very gently with his finger. "You want this?"

"I- _unhh…yes!"_ Armin managed, arching impatiently against the finger that circled the wet little hole. Eren slid his finger inside, then a second, causing Armin to thrash and whimper. 

"Little slut wants more," Eren breathed decadently, fingering him faster.

And Armin was just that in his dream, acting out more audaciously than he would ever have dared in their waking life.

"Yeah," he moaned softly, "yeah, I do…"

Eren pulled Armin up straight so he was no longer bent forward, but still on his knees. He knelt behind him on the bed, strong forearms locked around Armin's torso.

It was then that Armin saw Levi.

In his dream, the loft door was open, the Captain had climbed up the ladder and was poised to step onto the landing. In the dim light, his eyes glinted like silver coins.

Armin surely would have yelped in shock and attempted to cover himself had he been awake; in this dream world, all he knew was that he was Eren's fragile, gorgeous, horny little plaything, being held in place on his knees, reddened cock standing at attention as if to salute the arrival.

_Captain on the floor._

He held Levi's gaze, even as Eren slicked himself up, parted Armin's cheeks and pressed into his body, filling him. Eren pulled nearly all the way out, then slowly, achingly, buried himself to the hilt, groaning deep in his chest.

Armin transfixed Levi with his stare. _See? Do you see what I give him? Do you see how I'm his?_

And then, unbidden, the number came into Armin's head: _14.4389._

Armin's sweet face became sultry, lips parting and rhythmic, needy little sounds coming out, in time with the slow, delicious fucking he was getting. 

_See what he's doing to me? I ache for him every fucking day. See, sir?_

Armin bent forward and placed his hands flat on the bed, spreading his legs and grinding his smooth ass sensually against Eren's groin.

_See Captain, how prettily I take his thick cock? Isn't he fucking beautiful? He isn't a monster. He's a flesh-and-blood man. My man._

The Levi of Armin's dream hadn't moved. He watched Armin calmly.

_14.4389._

Eren's arms were closing around Armin's torso, drawing him upright again and thrusting into him with a hard, irregular rhythm, their young bodies slapping and squelching together. All Armin could smell was the warm, woodsy musk that was Eren; he felt Eren's blood pound in time with his own.

Eren tilted his hips, pushing into Armin from a lower angle, the thrusts becoming stabs of pure, raw pleasure.

_He's going to make me come so hard, sir..._

"Pixie, I can't stop…" said the rough voice in his ear, and then Eren pressed the palm of his hand to Armin's throbbing cock, fingers splayed.

_God, Captain, it's happening now…_

Armin locked eyes with the silent figure on the landing.

_Watch me come...I'm coming...._

Armin cried out, a long, raspy wail, as he bucked against Eren's hand; hot, pearly seed pulsing between Eren's fingers. Eren fucked him through his climax, Armin's helpless spasms pulling Eren over the edge, the beast within him roaring it's claim.

___________________________________________

Eren wasn't asleep. Some nights, he simply lay in silence, having long since learned to accept the workings of a body that was only partly his, and partly belonged to another part of time and space. No matter. 

Armin stirred in his arms. His breath hitched unevenly. His slender body tensed and quivered like a rattlesnake and then Eren's thigh was soaked with a silky wetness.

Armin awoke with a start. 

"Wha-"

"Sssh,"  Eren softly kissed the moist forehead, "it's okay."

"E-Eren? What…."

"A dream," Eren whispered gently, "It's just a dream," he chuckled softly, "the wet kind."

"Oh, no," Armin groaned. "Shit, sorry… _sorry,"_ he wriggled to get free of Eren and reach for a washcloth.

Eren pulled him back, kissing the naughty mouth softly. "It's sweet," he whispered. "I want to hear all about this dream."

"14.4389," Armin said suddenly, now fully awake.

He turned his head, staring fixedly at the loft door which was closed, as always.

"14.4389," Armin said with absolutely certainly.

"What's that?" Eren asked.

Armin looked at Eren's ghost-dark form. "There are two numbers," he said with eerie finality. "Levi's. And this is the other one."

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. The Stab of a Pin

Rudy Vogel, Mr. Arlert's clerk, was twelve years old. Rudy sported an auburn undercut hairstyle which, due to a rather pronounced front cowlick, looked exactly like a miniature version of Captain Rivaille's. Rudy drank tea by holding onto the top edge of the teacup, just like Captain Rivaille did.

Mr. Arlert had picked Rudy Vogel as his clerk for the simple reason that the tiny redhead was easy to spot quickly on the busy rotunda floor.

Mr. Arlert had asked Rudy a question during the interview process: _"Who has the most important job in the Survey Corps?"_  
A candidate typically might answer, Commander Erwin Smith, or C. Sc. Zoe Hanji, or Captain Levi Rivaille. Or even Eren Jaeger. All plausible answers.

When this question had been posed, Rudy had replied, _"Well sir, I do."_

"Oh?" Mr. Arlert had smiled a little, pushing his round spectacles back onto the bridge of his small nose.

 _"Well, yes,"_ Rudy had continued. _"See sir, from where I sit, the only job I can try and do properly is mine. It's the only one I have any say over. It's the one I've got to pay the most attention to."_

Rudy got the job.

It was after the interview that Armin found out that Rudy was actually a little girl. A girl, who had very little use for being a girl, and wanted nothing more than to offer up her little beating heart in the service of her hero, Captain Rivaille. Oh yes, and to humanity too, of course.

Rudy adored Mr. Arlert. He wasn't like anyone else who worked in the rotunda. There were strategists, intelligence officers, cartographers, librarians, high-ranking officials and diplomats. Many of them were dry, humourless and disinclined to regard their clerks as anything more than furniture.

Mr. Arlert wasn't very old. He had cornsilk yellow hair, which he sometimes twisted into a knot and stabbed through with a pencil. He was a little klutzy and tended to spill things, or drop things. He apologized often, for example when he clunked Rudy on the head with his elbow while they were filing in the stacks, which happened fairly often.

Mr. Arlert was kind, and he had a soft voice. He didn't leer at Rudy or make fun of her trousers, shirt and vest. Instead, he sometimes put his tea biscuit onto her saucer at break time, so she got to eat two treats instead of one.

When Rudy reported for duty on a Wednesday morning, Mr. Arlert was already at his desk.

"Good morning sir!" Rudy chirped.

"Hiya Rudy," Armin greeted her. "Gather up your bits and pieces. We're going to the cartography room this morning."

Rudy liked the cartography room. It was on an upper floor of the rotunda, closer to the domed ceiling with it's ornate painting of Mithras slaying the bull. It had a glass fishtank containing a grouper, which tried to eat her tiny white digits when she tapped on the glass.

Rudy gathered her pens and notebook and followed Mr. Arlert.

"Sir? What're we going to do in here today?"

"We," said Armin, "are going to be plotting a map for the Captain and then you are going to be making six copies of it."

Armin and Rudy found a large, empty table in the cartography room. The cartography department had discovered and evaluated a number of ancient maps that had been found inside the rotunda. These old maps utilized a grid system which was different than the pie-shaped-sector system the military used to define and divide space within the Three Walls. Field tests had shown that this pre-existing system of longitude and latitude, established using instruments, was easier to navigate than the pie sectors, and allowed for expanded survey outside the Walls, using the same system as within.

The Survey Corps had just begun the process of applying longitude and latitude to existing maps.

Armin unrolled a map onto the table and placed on top of it a piece of translucent vellum, etched with the new coordinates. He asked Rudy to use a slide rule on several key landmarks, and read out their coordinates while he made notations.

"Aye sir, first one," Rudy read carefully. "Five-six-point-zero-five-seven…."

Armin froze.

"…six."

No. Oh no. It wasn't this simple. The numbers that had come to him and to Levi couldn't be as bloody simple as _map headings_. 

"I see," he said carefully, heart thudding in his chest. "Rudy, stop with that one."

"Sir?"

"I would like you, please, to find this intersection."

Armin wondered if his clerk could see his hands shaking as he pulled out the scrap of paper from his vest pocket.  
50.0586, Levi had scratched. Rudy looked at the paper, and slid the rule carefully to the north, small tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

Armin picked up a pen. He began to write. "Good. Now, let's find the intersector. 14.4389."

Rudy did it slowly, counting under her breath. "Here! That's it here!" she stabbed a pin triumphantly onto the map, through the vellum.

________________________________________________________

It was unseasonably warm, for springtime. A column of armed, mounted men and wagons wound it's way slowly along the riverbank, toward the eastern gate of Wall Rose. The company was a Garrison force headed to Boxley. The town's man-made wall-and-pit system had finally been completed.

The town was secured, once again in the hands of mankind, and ready to be reoccupied. It's mill could be put to use, it's gardens tilled, it's market opened. But first, the soldiers of it's Garrison would reoccupy the keep that stood at it's centre.

Garrison soldiers had changed much in the past six years, Captain Rivaille mused to himself, leading the column astride Louis de Soleil, his impressive black mount. Once just caretakers, filling themselves with pie and drink, Garrison soldiers since the fall of Shiganshina were combat-ready, tough and superbly trained.

 _Nearly,_ thought the Captain, his delicate mouth quirking wryly, _nearly as well trained as my people. But not quite._

Thus, several hand-picked members of Levi's squad had been tasked with riding vanguard, and then helping the soldiers to secure their Garrison and set patrols once they reached Boxley.

The steady rhythm of the column's advance was broken by the sound of a lone rider, cantering up to the head of the procession.

Levi Rivaille looked up to see Armin Arlert, who was supposed to be back at HQ creating the maps for the new Garrison. Both rider and horse were drenched with sweat, Armin looking flushed and a little wild-eyed.

"I - _Sir,_ " he gasped, winded, "Captain! I've found…that…what you wanted me to…." Armin jerked Caesar's reins hard right, the large brown dancing madly sideways as Armin faced Levi, trying to explain Walls-knew-what.

"Do you know," Levi said drily, "what is hell on earth?"

"Sir?"

"Hell on earth is being your _fucking horse_ right now, Arlert. Now before you break his damn leg, fall in and settle down."

"I - "

"Settle the fuck down, and fall in," Levi's grey eyes regarded him steadily. "When we arrive at the Garrison, we will speak."

Armin huffed out a breath and settled in beside a cabbage wagon. He patted his horse's neck, flecked with foam. "Sorry, boy," he murmured soothingly.

His mind was empty of all else, save for the name of the location Rudy Vogel had stabbed on the map with her pin:

 _Shangun Prison._ And that place truly was hell on earth.


	4. Lemon & Lye

The company marched into Boxley in the early afternoon. The sight of the village left Armin a little shaken. The bloody encounter in Boxley's streets had left him badly wounded and Recon Sergeant Jean Kirschstein's mount, Joker, dead. It was hard to appreciate the charm of the quaint, pastel-coloured houses, the cobbled square and the sturdy stone keep. 

Armin led Caesar into the Garrison stables, his horse a little skittish as he nosed the strange smells. "Easy does it," Armin soothed. "I'm sure there's a treat for you around here somewhere." 

He got Caesar settled, and strode out of the barn to find Levi.

This was fairly easy to do, as Levi was in the courtyard of the stone keep, shouting the odds at the Garrison's steward. The young man looked befuddled, holding out his hands in protest. As Armin drew closer, it became clear that the source of the Captain's ire was the condition of the keep.

"But sir, I assure you the quarters were swept clean…"

" _Non!_ I would not allow a _pig's whore_ to sleep in there! Pah! It's filthy!" Levi stalked into the keep, and there was a further clamor as he banged open shutters, threw open doors and raved some more. Armin sighed. It would be hours before Levi was amenable to any news whatsoever, including his.

He found Eren at the well, drawing water which would be boiled and poured into pails and mixed variously with lye soap, vinegar or cleaning grit.

Eren looked up, spotted him and grinned slowly, "Why, M.A. Arlert," he nodded. "Thought you were making maps today?"

"Corporal," Armin replied, "I've come with messages for the Captain which he's in no mood to hear," he snorted, fishing a leather tie out of his jacket pocket and scooping at his smooth blond hair. Eren moved behind him, and Armin's arms dropped as he allowed Eren's hands to tug the fair strands into a short braid. 

Eren kissed the top of the pale head, breathing in the warm, sunshiny scent of Armin.

"Mmm. Miss me?"

"Stop it!"

"Aw, you missed me," Eren teased, leaning closer to Armin's small, round ear, "did you dream of me again?" he snickered. "Was I good? 'Cause you never told me…"

"Stop!" Armin burst out laughing.

Eren's fingernails grazed Armin's neck. "What? Was it really filthy hot? Did I make you beg?….Was I rough?"

A little shiver.

"Hmm," Eren mused, satisfied, carefully finishing the plait, "So that's it. I was rough," he chuckled. "And you," he swatted Armin on the behind, "you loved it, didn't you?"

"Jaeger!! Arlert!! Now!!"

The two young soldiers scrambled to hoist the water buckets and bring them into the keep.

___________________________________

Without Jean Kirschstein there, a huge, bright energy was missing from the company. Armin found Marco Bott mopping the tile floor with methodical, even strokes.

"He's still on leave?" Armin asked.

"Yeah," Marco shook his head. "Not doing all that well. I can't get him to talk. Aren't you supposed to be making maps?"

Mikasa was just outside the kitchen, stuffing linens into a huge, sudsy tub. She kissed her childhood friend on the cheek. "Armin-chu" she smiled, patting the braid.

Armin found Levi in the upper hall. The hall ran around all four sides of the keep, in a large square. It had glazed windows which opened out onto the courtyard, each with small, square panes.

Levi sported gloves, a kerchief on his head and a dust guard on his face. He looked ready to chop someone into tiny pieces.

He had a pail of vinegar solution and a sponge rag and was rapidly and methodically cleaning each of the windowpanes. Armin stripped to his shirt, rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and picked up a rag. He cleaned the other side of each window pane that Levi cleaned, at the same time, until they gleamed. Armin counted roughly twenty banks of windows. It was going to be a long afternoon.

As the smells of lemon, vinegar and soap filled the keep, Levi began to unwind a little. He pulled the dust guard from his face and inhaled the tang. They worked wordlessly, Armin scrambling to keep pace with his deft heichou. He looked at Levi through each windowpane as they worked, studying the closed lines of his delicate, feral face; the hooded, impassive grey eyes.

Out in the courtyard, Connie and Mikasa were stringing linens onto a line to dry in the warm spring sun. Connie waved. Armin waved back.

He and Levi continued their rhythm, one pane at a time, in silence.

Levi finally spoke: "Are you sure you know what that number is?"

Armin made no pretense. "Yes. I'm positive, _heichou._ "

Levi nodded but made no move to take a break. By the time they finished, the late sun was slanting in through the clean windows, striping the hallway in apricot.

____________________________________________

Levi put down his sponge, stripped off his kerchief and gloves, walked downstairs and outside. Armin followed. The diminutive Captain walked through the keep, out the gate, and across the square, Armin trotting alongside. He walked through the town, down to the riverbank and past the mill to the washed-out ruin of Boxley Bridge. Armin followed him soundlessly. Finally, Levi sat down on the bank.

The spring surge had passed and the river no longer foamed angry and brown; it had settled into a pleasant, clear flow. Sticking out of it were rotted piers; all that remained of the narrow span bridge that had collapsed in the spring floodwaters, trapping Jean's unit at the riverbank the day of the battle of Boxley.

Upstream, a corps of engineers was busy building a new, double-wide bridge, their hammer falls sounding like distant gunshots.

Armin lowered himself onto the grassy bank beside Levi. The bank was dotted with flowers; the same blue ones as at home in Shiganshina. 

At length, Levi reached over and tugged on the little braid, which had come mostly unravelled. Armin looked at his Captain.

"Your number is a map coordinate," Armin said softly. "The grid system is old. Very old. It predates ours, but it's better. So we're reapplying it to our maps. Whoever invented this system was surveying something a whole lot bigger than the territory contained within our Walls. It's new to me, so I didn't recognize the number sequence when you gave it to me, nor…nor did I recognize the number that...that I dreamed about."

"You dreamed about a number? _You?"_ Levi's eyes on him were sharp and silvery pale.

Armin swallowed. "Yes. In my dream, a number was made known to me as well. There was no mistaking it, I…"

"What sort of dream?"

"Uh?" Armin looked up, his blue eyes clouded with apprehension. "What?"

"What sort of dream was it?"

Armin looked away, cheeks burning. "It - it was about Eren and me. Myself. With Eren. In our bed. I know it sounds incongruous and you are unlikely to take me seriously because of it, only…"

"I was there in the dream too, correct?" Levi pressed.

"Ugh," Armin shut his eyes against the memory of his own wild abandon.

"I know I was there. Because my dream was similar. And I had your nosy little face in my bedchamber," Levi chuckled, startling Armin.

"P'tit, I have some idea that these whispers, or voices, come to us when our guard is lowest. At the only possible time it can ever be lowered. And you know when that is," he intimated.

Armin had an unbidden vision of himself, draped across Eren's wooden bed, struggling, not because he wanted to free himself, but because he wanted Eren's hands forcing him down, Eren's teeth at his throat, Eren pushing inside of him, making him do beautiful, lewd things until he came and it was so exquisitely sharp he thought he would die.

"Oh, relax," Levi snorted, not unkindly. "It's just shagging. Jester's balls, hopefully you've thousands more of those nights in your future. What is important is that you - we - are being shown something else; something long forgotten."

Armin looked at the Captain. "So…so sir, you have an intuition about these messages?"

Levi leaned back on one elbow, studying the river. "Nah," he said, "I just know a normal shagging from a fucked-up one."

 


	5. Blue. Gold. Gold. Blue.

Dusk came. The lamps were lit at Boxley Garrison. Soldiers settled into the refurbished barracks. Supplies were unloaded. The mess hall began boiling the cabbages, turnips and onions that had travelled from Survey Corps HQ.

Overhead, the whip and sing of wires indicated patrols circling Boxley's perimeter. Some distance from the Garrison keep was the engineers' camp. Levi could smell their evergreen cookfires and beans boiling.

To the northeast, just beyond Boxley and the Blister, the abandoned hulk of Shangun Prison loomed. 

Armin had brought Levi a copy of the new grid system. It hadn't been necessary. Armin had simply put his finger on the map and stared at Levi, his sweet eyes bleak with certain conviction.

"Why us?" he had asked later. "I just…I really, _really_ don't like how this _feels_ , _heichou_."

"What do you want me to do about it?" Levi had asked him plainly. 

"I feel as though I'm losing my mind," Armin had whispered. "I'm…I'm _different_. Everything is sharper…I know new things, and don't know _how_ I've come to know them. I feel so…so _odd_."

"You have always been odd. This is not new." Levi laid a hand on Armin's shoulder. "Don't fret. Think about what Eren's life is like. Surely you and I can handle learning a few new words and numbers."

"Yes, sir."

Levi climbed the staircase, to the rooftop of the keep. Below him, campfires and safelights winked all over Boxley as the town came back to life. He smiled a thin, triumphant smile. "We've taken it back, you fuckers," he whispered to the beasts that roamed the darkness beyond the wall-and-pit enclosure.

Levi relished the voices he felt in his bones. He was more than happy to allow himself to be used as their vessel. For, despite his prowess, despite his formidable skills, despite what Erwin would call his haunting beauty, Levi Rivaille considered himself to be the unremarkable spawn of an underground Sina slum. He harboured no grand illusions about himself.

The voices were, to his mind, the first sign that he was destined to be something more than just an undersized, bitter wretch with a knack for killing. He welcomed them with a fierce abandon.

Levi raised his arm and fired a flare sequence: Blue-gold-gold-blue. He repeated it twice more.

The sequence would be picked up by the transmission station at Fellmeyer and relayed to it's recipient at HQ: Survey Corps Commander Erwin Smith. 

____________________________________

Levi's Special Ops squad found themselves bedding down in a long, narrow room alongside a greenhouse. They spread out their bedrolls companionably; Connie, Sasha, Marco, Mikasa, Eren and Armin.

"Armin?"

"What, Con?

"How are we supposed to Survey tomorrow? You've made no maps."

Armin sighed. 

____________________________________

Shortly before dawn, Eren Jaeger woke. He sat up, keen ears pricked. He listened to the approaching hoofbeats. Heavy, distinctive, controlled. The horse had to be Bismarck. He went to nudge Armin to tell him that Commander Smith had come to Boxley. But Armin was finally asleep, one arm flung above his head, breaths soft and deep. Glancing up, he saw Sasha watching him.

"That horse...that's Bismarck," he mouthed to her.

"I know," she whispered. "But why?"

_____________________________________

A fine, pre-dawn drizzle cloaked the stone keep. Commander Erwin Smith has been stopped by three sets of sentries on his way in. The Boxley patrols Levi had set up were most effective.

He handed the reins of his large cream-coloured bay, Bismarck, to the stablehand and entered the keep.

He found the slight, hooded figure on the roof of the Garrison keep, looking to the north.

Watching _Shangun_. 

He approached. 

"Captain?" 

"Did my patrols catch you, _danchou?"_

"Yes. More than once."

"Good," A pause. "I'm sorry for the urgency. I debated waiting until morning before sending word. I wanted to keep this shit from landing on you."

"Oh?"

The drizzle was thickening.

"Let us go inside. I have some numbers to show you. There are things to discuss." Levi's tone was brusque, but contained a thin string of pain most would have missed.

Levi strode toward Erwin and the roof door. Under the door's archway, Erwin stopped him. He pushed back the small hood and studied Levi's face, finding purple hollows beneath the grey eyes. He bent his head and pressed his lips gently to Levi's temple for a long moment. 

In a low, soft voice reserved for Levi's ears alone he said, "I will always come for you. Never doubt that."

_____________________________________

Armin's sunny smile made it harder for Erwin. The young Military Aide snapped off a crisp salute as Erwin strode across the courtyard to the garden where Levi's squad had congregated in the morning sunlight.

"At ease, Mr. Arlert." he smiled back.

"You haven't come all this way to give me a dressing down about the maps, have you, Sir?" Armin winced.

"Well, no," Erwin said, "besides which, your little copyist has set her hand at making a start without you. She's very keen."

"Armin, I'm here to deliver a briefing. We have an assignment. And," he swallowed, "before I ask for your assistance, I need a word."

"Sir? H-have I made an error?" 

"Come with me," Erwin strode to a corner of the yard and sat on a bench, motioning Armin to join him.

Then, Erwin faced the young man, taking both his hands in his larger ones.

This frightened Armin more than anything.

____________________________________

"Shangun Prison," Erwin faced Levi's Special Ops Squad in the muster room of Boxley Garrison, "was constructed in 752 new era. Until the fall of Wall Maria, it was under the jurisdiction of the Military Police. Shangun was the most heavily fortified facility in our penal system; it housed the most violent, most dangerous and most predatory offenders known to humanity. Some faced life imprisonment. Most were slated for execution."

This wasn't news to any of the young soldiers. Tales of Shangun Prison had terrified them all as small children. 

Erwin continued, "a number of years ago, the MP's developed several assets to assist in the capture of the most elusive offenders. These assets had a working knowledge of the underground. This operation was under my control. One of those assets..."

"…was me," Captain Rivaille finished quietly. "Commander Smith cut a deal with Nile Dok. Dok and the Military Police would never be able to lock my ass up, draft me, or engage me…in exchange for a bit of help. More than a few cutthroats in Shangun got banged up in there because of me."

Murmurs rippled. Eren stared at Captain Rivaille. 

"and that, Eren," Levi continued, looking at the young Corporal, "was what gave me the latitude to take some liberties at your trial. Once you were my charge, you were untouchable as well."

"Huh," Eren looked pensive.

Armin sat hunched, eyes on the floor, cloak drawn around his small frame.

Commander Smith cleared his throat. "There was…"

They watched him curiously.

"There was another asset, on the inside. This person was able to feed us information from within the walls of Shangun. This man was a historian, apprehended attempting to lead colonists beyond the Walls, and jailed for being a heretic. He agreed to assist us in exchange for a commuted sentence. This man was Ingo Arlert."

Armin didn't know where to look. He didn't know what to feel. Commander Smith, one of the people he most trusted in this world, had kept this intelligence from him. Rationally, he understood the protocol. But his heart squeezed in his chest, and he felt small, and lost. He could still feel the warmth of Erwin's hands holding his own as he took Armin aside to explain, in measured tones, that Armin's father had not died, but rather had become a military asset inside of Shangun Prison.

"Your…your grandfather?" Marco asked.

"No," Armin replied. "Ingo was my father's name. He and Eren's dad were friends. They used to take us to the duck pond when we were little. And talk."

Armin glanced around the room. He saw Mikasa, whose parents had been brutally slain. And Connie, whose family had likely been changed into a hoard of titans, or killed. And Eren, whose mother…."We've all lost family in one way or another," he said quietly. "Sir, what do you need us to do?"

"When Wall Maria fell in the east, the Military Police were responsible for evacuating Shangun and transporting it's inmates back to Eichen, for holding." Erwin paused, looking at Levi for a long moment. "Only they didn't. The MP left the inmates there, fleeing to save their own lives. They abandoned them to the titans."

"This is…."

"A world class shit-show," Levi interjected. "The public believes that an evacuation was attempted; not that human beings - criminals or otherwise - were left behind as titan-food. The MP would like nothing more than for Shangun to stay dead and buried. Only,"

He looked at Armin. "Only, Arlert and I have some credible intelligence that tells us we need to go pay that shithole a visit, to see what's still crawling around down there in the dark."

"And sir? If the MP doesn't like what we find?" asked Mikasa.

Erwin addressed her question. "It has been the Survey Corps reclaiming titan-held territories, such as Boxley. And as such, I have a charter from the Viceroy's office ruling that any reclaimed territory, including a twelve kilometre buffer outside of any reclamation, shall be under the jurisdiction of the Survey Corps, not the Military Police."

"Therefore," he finished, "Shangun Prison just became our problem."

_____________________________________

Levi's Special Ops pulled out of Boxley that afternoon. They returned to HQ as the last light of day was fading from the sky. 

Captain Levi Rivaille entered the armoury alone, lit a safety lamp and descended down a flight of cement stairs.

He opened a large set of oak double doors. A round room lay within. Lining it's walls was an astonishing array of weaponry; straight blades, specialized blades, curved swords, gas darts, crossbows, pistols, mortars, flintlocks. They gleamed in the dim light of the safety lamp, waiting for his touch.

"You want to talk?" he asked the voices in the darkness, drawing a menacing curved blade from it's sheath, "Well, let's fucking talk, then."

________________________________

Rain skittered off the barn roof. Eren sat up in their bed, Armin's arms and legs wrapped around him. The gentle blond embraced him tightly, burrowing against his neck, his fist in Eren's dark hair. Eren murmured soft reassurances. 

Armin shook his head, raising his face and seeking Eren's mouth with his own, bruising it with kisses. 

"Easy," Eren said softly. "Armin, talk to me…"

"Please, Eren…"

Eren closed his eyes as Armin kissed him hungrily, tasting of tears and of hurt.

"Armin, not like this," he stroked the soft hair, "not when you're upset like this, not when you're crying…"

He trailed off, sighing into the gorgeous little mouth that was hell-bent on changing his mind. Armin's teeth caught his bottom lip, nipping it, then lapping at the pain. Eren reacted reflexively, his hand sliding underneath Armin to cup his firm bottom, pulling him tight against the bulging ache between his legs.

"Come _on_ ," Armin pleaded.

Eren broke off the kiss, taking in the small, tear-streaked face, lashes clumped wetly together.

"Oh pixie," he whispered, aroused in spite of the salty tears, or perhaps because of them.

"I want," the wet little voice in his ear whispered,  "I need you. _I need you so much_. I need for _something_ to be normal and okay and…and _mine_ …I…"

Eren gave in. He gave Armin what he needed until Armin sobbed his release into the darkened loft that was the only home they knew.


	6. Campfires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter introduces my interpretation of Hanji. I've broken canon in my choice to write Hanji using 'she' pronouns. This is not to disrespect their canon neutrality; my AU just really needs a mature female leader...

Captain Rivaille walks the line.

"Sasha."

She is ready, but still, she's startled. She's never been chosen first.

A few more steps.

"Arlert."

_We are finally going. Waiting has been harder than leaving._

"Connie."

He hadn't said as much to Sasha, but he knew this selection was coming. And he knows the reason for it: Ragako.

"I am the fourth." Levi says quietly. "That's the interior team."

"Lance Corporal Bott," Levi approaches Marco. "You are in charge of Squad Two, in Hanji's absence. Hanji comes with us."

"Yes, Sir."

Eren and Mikasa watch him with tempered curiosity. _The three of them are bound with Shiganshina iron_ , Levi muses.

"Jaeger. Exterior team."

He stops in front of Mikasa. 

"Mikasa. Step forward." 

She has a way of remaining eyes-forward without submitting to him. She obeys every order with quartz precision, but has never relinquished her will. Her reason for becoming an elite soldier is evidenced in her every line of muscle.

"Mikasa, your assignment…is safeguarding Eren. You will do this in my stead," Levi steps closer, until she feels his soft breath on her chin.

"I have never, ever relinquished that responsibility. To anyone."

Her eyes meet his, dark as obsidian. "Neither have I, Captain."

__________

A flat stone mesa rises out of the northeastern plateau. It is upon this mesa that Shangun Prison is built. It is a square stone edifice, smooth-walled and flat-roofed. It is devoid of traditional windows; light and air find their way in through long, narrow slats in the stone, too narrow for a human to pass through.

The land immediately surrounding the mesa is marshy; too wet for horses if the main road is forsaken.

While the ugly tooth of Shangun-urku rises into the sky, her dungeons are dug deep into the mesa and it is said they go down for all eternity.

"No problem," Connie snorted. "Haven't seen the place yet that I can't wriggle out of," he eyed Sasha, sitting tall and strong on Saffy, "or into, if need be."

They followed the river northeast. As dusk fell, they were ordered to camp in the shadow of the north face of the manmade wall, in the reclaimed quadrant known as the 'Blister'.

"Tomorrow we take the horses as far as Bone Road. We continue from there using gear," Levi ordered.

Armin unrolled the map onto his bedroll.

Connie crawled up beside him. The map, Armin's master copy, was covered in tick marks, red notations, tack-holes and numbers cribbing together the old survey system with the new. 

Connie whistled softly. "That's some mess."

Armin sighed, dropping his face into his hands and rubbing tiredly, 

Connie propped his head on his elbow. "I don't mean this unkindly Arm, but I can't made hide nor hair of that map. I never realized how much I miss Kirschstein, that big sack of shit. Comes to Recon men, he's the best of the best."

Connie rolled onto his back. "Hope he's feeling right soon. We need him. We - ow!!"

Armin had ahold of Connie's ear, and pinched it hard to turn him over. "Listen, Con. Progress is, well, it's _messy_. Change is ugly. But we won't change anything unless…"

"Walls' whores, I know. You're a broken record, Armin."

"Well if you know, then bend your head over here properly. I'm going to teach you how to read the new grid."

Connie knew better than to argue.

__________

Chief Science Officer Zoe Hanji sat near the fire, on an overturned half barrel. She poked at the flames, sending a shower of sparks heavenward. She chuckled; it was the sort of laugh that lovers share over a long-running joke.

"You think I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for this shit, don't you?" she asked the night sky.

__________

It had been the way that Erwin had dismounted. His back was to her. When he turned, there was a folded green bundle in his arms. She knew immediately.

In retrospect, it could have been anything; an item for her to analyze, a horse blanket, a gear bundle. No, it was the way Erwin had carried the bundle; tenderly, as though he cherished it.

Two alternate realities that Zoe Hanji allowed to run parallel in her mind suddenly crashed together: _this was always going to happen_ and _this was never going to happen._

Not to Mike. He was too strong. Too smart. Not to them. It wasn't possible.

But there it was.

She remembers it like this:

Erwin walks toward her. He is shaking. She knows this because the tattered ends of the bloody green cape are quivering. She closes the gap to spare him the last few agonizing steps.

Then, incredibly, she puts her arms around Erwin, crushing the cape between them, and says in a measured, steady voice, "It's okay, Erwin. It's going to be okay. Thank you. I'm so sorry."

She pulls away. "Let me have it," she says gently. She takes the cape into her arms as though it is a newborn. "It's okay," she soothes herself, Erwin and the spirit she feels is there with them. "It's okay."

She sleeps with it that night. Or rather, she takes it to bed, holds it close and tells it, "I know you're here with me."

She takes it upon herself to tell the trainees. Big Jean Kirschstein sobs in disbelief. She pulls his sandy head against her chest and murmurs, "It's okay Jean…he's at peace now."

At his service, she'd wanted there to be campfires, and song. They'd floated candles down the river when night fell. Erwin had spoken, beautifully. Levi had come up to her at the darkened riverbank and clasped her to him. All he had said was, "Anything you need." She knew that meant up to and including vengeance.

When she was alone in their cottage, she'd closed the door and wept; horrible sounds that no one should ever have to make. She'd apologized to him for things done and left undone; for allowing her obsession with science to occupy spaces that should have been his. She'd hoped that in his last moments shock had shown it's mercy and numbed the pain and fear.

 _"While I live, you shall live,"_ she still said simply to him, every day.

Levi joined her at the fire. "Mike would've loved this shit," he said.

"That's for certain," Hanji smiled at her old friend and stretched her legs. "He wasn't much for sitting still."

__________ 

Eren and Sasha had spent rather alot of time observing the body language of the horses. It spoke volumes. Thus, it gave them a particular chuckle to look across the campfire at Connie and Armin studying the map. 

"Armin's explaining," Eren murmurs. "See his hand stuck out to the side, palm up? He thinks Connie should be catching on faster."

Sasha grins. She watches as Connie frowns, sucking his lips into a thin line. Then, a small nod. "And Connie just figured it out," she says.

"Come on." 

Eren rises. He and Sasha attend to the tether line, blanketing the horses, checking each of them. Levi's mount is nervous, ears flattened and eyes showing white.

"Husha, Lou…" Sasha takes hold of his bridle gently. 

Eren finds Cricket, patting the beautiful dapple grey's neck, scratching her ears and stroking her long, elegant muzzle. He places his face against hers, communing silently.

__________ 

MIkasa watches the camp, some twenty metres below, from her position atop the wall. She had helped to supervise the construction of these new walls around the Blister. She knows they are sound, and the spiked pits just beyond are wide and deep. Few things give Mikasa relief. But the fact that human hands built these walls unaided, does. 

Granted, they aren't as high, nor as smooth, nor as eerily white as the three Walls that protect humanity, but neither are they built upon the bones of slumbering titans.

Mikasa does not trust the Three Walls one bit. She doesn't need fevered dreams to tell her that humankind must find a way to live outside the Walls. And soon.

__________

They settle for the night.

"Do it. _Please, Eren?"_

Eren exhaled. "So demanding," he whispered.

He rolled onto his side. Armin lay on his back, eyes closed. He opened one eye. 

"Okay, okay." Eren capitulated.

Eren smoothed a finger slowly across Armin's left eyebrow, traced his orbital bone, then across the bridge of his delicate nose. Across the right eyebrow, around the other eye socket. Up the middle of Armin's forehead, along his hairline to his temple. Ritually, hypnotically, he traced a soft pattern on his lover's face until Armin slipped into dreamless sleep.

__________

It had stayed downwind of the horses, watching their small, orange campfire from the shadows. It's hands, each as large as a wagon wheel, terminated in dirty claws. A pale, flaxen shag covered it's head and extended down it's back and arms. It could smell them…Levi, all waif and fury…Mikasa, fire and black ice…there, on the ground, the tender, honeyed morsel that was Armin. And covering Armin, the restless, haunted power that young Eren Jaeger had become. 

The ancient language which often passed between Armin Arlert and Levi Rivaille has seven words for 'monster'. 

The beast in the darkness wonders which of those words describes it best. 


	7. The Bonekeeper's Game Part One

They left the safety of the Blister by way of the Blister Wall's north gate. They were venturing into territory formerly held by humanity and which now contained free roaming titans. The massive portcullis lifted, creaking, and the gate warden shouted the all-clear. Connie Springer rode through the gate, raising his green eyes skyward as he passed beneath the gate's massive iron teeth.

"I reckon these new Walls we've built need names, too." he mused. "Sure, they aren't the biggest Walls in the world but hell, we built 'em! Can't keep calling it 'Blister Wall' forever."

"What would you suggest?" Captain Rivaille reined in Louis de Soleil beside him.

"Dunno, boss. I think 'Wall Connie' has a nice ring to it."

__________

They followed a winding road to the edge of the marshland. Here, huge, ancient trees rose out of the marsh, standing like gnarled soldiers before the gates of Shangun Prison. The mesa itself, a natural platform, jutted incongruously out of the swamp land. Shangun's walls rose, sheer and stark, several storeys into the sky, scored with dark slats that looked to Armin like long, mournful eyes.

There was a small garrison stable at Bone Road, sitting in the shadow of Shangun Prison. It was here that they left the horses. Captain Rivaille spoke briefly with the stable master, a sergeant past his prime and prone to wheezing.

Squad Leader Zoe Hanji shouldered a sizeable backpack. Inside were notebooks, wax for impressions, tiny glass jars. In her belt pouch she carried injectable syrettes containing an antidote modelled after the serum that had saved Armin's life after the battle of Boxley.

In addition to the standard armaments, the squad was also outfitted with specialized tools. Sasha carried both a crossbow and dart gun, steel-tipped arrows, as well as projectile charges.

Levi's voice was low and penetrating in the confines of the stable.

"Evade rather than engage where at all possible. First objective is to secure the building. Anyone found within it's walls is to be taken into custody. _Alive, Eren._ Second objective is fact-finding. We are looking for material similar to the collections that were found inside the rotunda. Maps, books, records, information. Armin and I will be…will be able to sort what we find. Stealth is essential until we've determined who..or what…is inside those walls. He looked along the line. _"Stealth, Sasha._ Understand?"

She nodded vigorously. She was worried about the horses. And she was hungry.

__________

There had been a time when Armin would have slipped repeatedly when landing onto the slick, mossy boughs of the swamp trees. Instead, it was Connie Springer coming in too fast and earning himself a soaking in the fetid water of the marsh.

"What part of _fucking stealth_ did you not fucking understand?" Levi hissed at the silver-haired young soldier. 

Thunder growled in the distance. A wind was picking up, under a low bank of grey clouds. Six small forms weaved on singing wires through the trees, and at a nod from Levi, latched onto the south wall of Shangun Prison. 

Armin landed beside one of the long slats that peppered the thick wall. Through it, he scented a peculiar, metallic rot. He shivered.

Levi motioned them onto the roof. It had been tiled in copper, now oxidized green. Chimney stacks stood in a neat line. Connie peered down one of them.

"That's a small space," he said quietly. "Like, rabbit-small."

A thick steel grate covered a large section in the centre of the roof, and down through this a dirty stone courtyard was visible.

The view from the rooftop was impressive. This quadrant had been sparsely populated in peacetime, having Boxley village as it's nearest neighbour. The marshlands sloped gradually uphill and drained; the black, rich earth thus revealed was some of the best farmland available. Away to the north, blue hills stretched into the horizon. They could see the white rim of massive Wall Maria, and beyond it, the lands that still fired Eren's imagination.

Eren saw the first titans. They were at least a kilometre distant, shambling away from their location. His eyes narrowed.

The small squad separated, swinging around the building to investigate it's massive iron doors, securely locked. They scooted the perimeter, noting water intake and outflow. They found three ancillary doors, also locked. Two slightly larger windows, with iron grates.

"Don't suppose anyone bothered to ask for the keys?" Connie grumbled.

They regrouped on top of the building. Raindrops hit the copper roof, pelting like crabapples. Lightning flashed in the sky.

"Boss, not the best choice of position in a thunderstorm," Eren commented.

Levi was nodding his assent, when Armin grabbed his arm. "Sir? I…well, that is, Sasha and I have an idea…"

__________

The rain lashed down in sheets. Beneath the trees, it filtered through the thick leaves dripping in thin streams onto Levi's squad. Thunder cracked.

"Be still, Connie!" Sasha hissed. Connie Springer perched on a branch, his cloak held out like a small tent over the heads of Sasha and Armin. Between the two of them, they had an open supply bag and were muttering.

Eren's face was turned up to the sky, eyes closed, as the cold rain pelted him. What no one realized, not even Armin, was how badly it hurt when he suffered the burns. There could never be enough cold rain in the world for Eren Jaeger.

Mikasa Ackerman stood point, grim and silent. Her dark eyes were fixed on Shangun Prison.

A loud crack of thunder caused Connie to jump, and Armin and Sasha both began cursing at him. Finally, they popped their heads out, jackets zipped.

Levi nodded to them: "Go."

Sasha and Armin swung out for the Prison, clamping onto the wall near one of the iron-grated windows. The window was recessed, deeply enough that the overhang remained dry.

They stuck the two small wads they carried inside their jackets onto the window ledge and retreated. Once back in the treetops, Sasha strung her crossbow, fixed an arrow and waited. The arrow was tipped with oiled wadding. Sasha dipped the bow, touching the arrowhead to Levi's lit tinderbox. Lightning flashed. She let fly, just as the thunder cracked. The flaming arrow connected with the powder charge she and Armin had placed. The window grate blew, leaving a yawning hole.

"No one would've heard that under cover of the storm," Connie marvelled.

"We're in," said Armin.

Levi said nothing.

__________

The air inside of the dark upper walkway was cloying, moist, and seemed to settle heavily on the skin, on the hair and inside of the mouth. All was gloom, the blackness pierced only by the grey bars of light that the window slats afforded. One could see, just barely, without the use of lamps. There were wall sconces, but these were empty.

Armin remembered nearly every word of the briefing.

_Shangun Prison is constructed on a four-walk square configuration, halls closest to the outer walls, cells to the interior._

The interior of the prison had beige-painted walls, peeling to reveal rot and stone. When their eyes adjusted to the gloom, the cells appeared; rows of dark, barred cavities in the walls. Some cell doors were locked. Some were missing. And in some cases, the bars were bent, as though by force. 

They rounded a corner and the gloom grew brighter. On this side, the cells had large, barred windows facing down into the interior courtyard which received light by means of a roof grate.

There, they encountered the body of the first guard. He lay face down, inside a locked cell. One arm reached through the bars. There was a noose around his neck. It was as though they'd thought to hang him, and then simply shut the cell door instead. A small hole had been pitifully clawed into the cement floor under the steel bars, with a piece of stone.

"Military Police," Levi said sadly, noting the Unicorn insignia. "Some quiet life it turned out to be."

__________

They descended a staircase to the ground floor. Here, more cells, and structural damage; large sections of the interior wall leading into the courtyard had been destroyed. 

There was a muster room, with a little office. The door to the muster room had been ripped off it's hinges.Two more bodies were inside the muster room. One was found, partially hidden beneath an overturned desk, the desk's heavy wooden edge resting on the corpse's face at an angle which had broken it's jaw and crushed it's skull. The other had been stuffed into a wooden uniform trunk, face down, but with enough force to snap the spine, such that the victim's head and shoulders, as well as both legs, stuck grotesquely out of the trunk.

"Oh, fuck," Connie stepped out into the hall and was sick.

On the desk were several ledgers, a cracked safety lamp, and teacups on saucers. Sasha put out a finger. She was horribly saddened by the teacups.

__________

Eren ran his tongue slowly over the small scar inside his lower lip. He did this to calm himself from time to time. As he surveyed the inside of the little office, a cold rage knotted his belly. He'd assumed that all of the MP's had fled. At least three of them had stood their ground, waiting for evacuation from this hellish posting.

His tongue caressed the little nub of skin. The scar was all that remained of the vicious kick he'd sustained to his face during the military tribunal, which had convened to determine if he was indeed, man or beast. Boy, or beast. It had been Levi - Corporal Rivaille then - that had demonstrated absolute physical control over Eren Jaeger and thus secured his release into Levi's custody.

Had Levi failed, Eren would have been brought here, in shackles. He would have been held in a squalid little cell for a few days at best, then dragged into the courtyard and hanged by the neck until dead.

He sucked thankfully at the little scar.

__________

_"Leaf", Armin had pointed to the illustration in the book._

_"Yes," Ingo said gently, kissing the top of the tiny golden head. "Good boy, good sweet boy."_

_He'd held his son on his lap, the big book spread overtop of them. He'd turned the pages, describing the pictures to the tiny tot he held._

_"Landscapes of ice, and seas of sand. Rivers and oceans. Fishes that leap from the sea, as large as cottages."_

_"Leaf!" Armin had repeated triumphantly. It had been his first word._

"Let's begin documenting," Squad Leader Hanji said to him, opening her pack. She looked up when the young Military Aide did not answer. Armin hung his head, silent, helpless tears curling around his pointed chin.

__________

They took copious notes, removed sample pages from logbooks. Levi began drafting orders to the Bone Road Garrison to come and collect the bodies of the three fallen prison guards. Armin walked the dark passages, peering into the gloomy depths of the cells behind their mangled bars.

_Mangled._

His indigo eyes grew wide in the darkness. Straining to see, he drew in quick strokes with his pencil. He walked a little further. In every case, the bars on the cells were bent, not inward, as would be the case if a titan were reaching _in_ to claim a victim, but _outward._

_Oh gods,_ Armin whispered to himself, _The monsters that bent these bars weren't outside the cells….they were inside them._

It was Ragako village again, only worse.

__________

The light in the courtyard was the best available. Levi had found the prisoner transfer records and sat on a gunbox, leafing through them. He knew their names. These were savages deemed too dangerous for town jails, or even for the prison camps. They had terrorized the Underground, preying on those that would never be missed, or mourned. 

It had been amazing, the things the he and Farlan and Isabel had observed, from their silent vantage point high in the caverns. Amazing and sickening.

Names. dwellings. victims. descriptions. He'd given it all to Erwin Smith without even blinking.

__________

He watches them through a steel grate at the level of their feet.

_Down, down, must come down…_

They've assembled in the courtyard, summarizing their findings. Connie Springer and Squad Leader Hanji concur with Armin's hypothesis that the inmates, or at least a number of them, had broken _out_ of their cells, probably in titan-form.

Captain Rivaille knows most of their names. Men like Kellor de Groot, who burned young street workers alive. Or Asa Koenig, a gang druglord. Or Boris Menchen.

Armin sits beside Levi, turning to the dark-haired Captain. "This is all useful, I suppose…"

Levi shakes his head. "No. We're missing it. This is sad. And it's horrible. But we haven't found _shit_."

_Down, down, must come down…_

"Sir, the subterranean levels…if they even exist…"

_That's it._

_My boy. Good boy, good sweet boy...._


	8. The Bonekeeper's Game Part Two

"Well," Connie snorted. "That's an end to _that_ then."

 The search party peered down into a pit filled with rubble, debris and rebar, where the stairwell descending into the lower caverns used to be. 

 "Collapsed," mused Armin.

 "Or deliberately blocked," Levi replied quietly.

 They looked at one another for a long moment. "Sir, there is a way…"

 ____________________

The soldiers slipped silently out of the same window through which they entered. They landed on the soft, spongy ground, alongside a wet moat which ran around the prison. The base of the structure was dotted with small sewer intake and outflow ports, about two feet wide. The stench on this side of the building was rank.

Levi shuddered.

Zoe Hanji traced her finger over the schematic she'd found with the material. "Here…and then turn here…it's possible to get in this way, only one would have to be very…"

"…small," Captain Rivaille finished grimly. For a moment he felt as though he couldn't form a thought. His eyes teared, and his stomach had begun hitching. The stench filled his nostrils, stung his eyes, violated his throat. He wondered why the others weren't as sickened by it as he was.

"Sir?" Armin said quietly. "Sir, it's imperative that get inside there…we…"

"I know," Levi replied snappishly. "Listen up,"

He removed his manoeuver gear, reserving two pistols, several knives and a length of rope.

"I will go."

"But Heichou," Connie objected. "Sir, I'm your guy for small spaces, I am."

"Not this time, Springer. I will go. Arlert will go."

The unit looked at one another, befuddled.

"Form up!" Levi growled suddenly. They scrabbled themselves into a line. 

"This is not a fucking social outing!" his silver eyes blazed. _"I've fucking had it._ I've had it with the liberties, with the familiarities, with the undisciplined bullshit!" 

He glowered at them savagely.

"Arlert, prepare yourself. Now. Ackerman and Jaeger, you are posted outside unless signalled. Please keep your eyes peeled for large, hungry creatures. They're called _fucking titans._ Springer, Blouse, you will continue to work with Squad Leader Hanji on the main level to resolve another way down and gather as much info as you can.  Rendezvous back here by dark. _Is that crystal fucking clear to all of you?"_

"Sir, yes sir!"

Levi made it as far as the outflow port. He bent double, placed his hands on his knees and retched. 

"Captain," Armin's large, sweet eyes were full of sympathy that Levi had no use for. "Sir, I will go."

Levi spat. Then, fingers shaking, he carefully removed his cravat, rolled it and placed it into an inner pocket.

He said, in the strange, ancient tongue they shared: "You know that we both need to go. Because someone needs to make it back out. Between my skill set and yours, that has to happen."

The next ten minutes were pure hell. Levi Rivaille crawled through one-hundred feet of the foulest, most stomach-churning filth he could ever have imagined. Mold, mud, feces, rubble, and rotting water. Armin followed doggedly on his heels. 

"Sir it turns right…sir in just a few minutes…it…" 

Levi concentrated on placing one hand in front of the other, wanting to sob as the slime squished through his fingers. They came to a join in the tunnel which required them to slide through on their bellies. Levi convulsed, vomiting hotly onto the tunnel floor. 

"God, Arlert, sorry…."

"Sir, it hardly makes a difference in here, does it?"

They rounded a corner and popped out of the hole into a larger tunnel, six feet wide and almost standing height.

Levi landed on all fours, gasping and shaking. Armin sat beside him.

"Arm yourself," Levi ordered, tears running through the muck on his delicate cheeks. He rose, pulling out a curved knife, peering into the darkness.

"For making me crawl through _that,_ " he hissed, "I will slit your cock-sucking throats!"

______________________________

Not many people knew about Mikasa's interest in construction. Perhaps only Marco Bott, as they'd spent hours discussing such things. Her keen eyes surveyed the landscape from the roof of Shangun-uruk.

"Hmm," she noted, "a diverged aqueduct, like we made at the Blister."

"Huh?" Eren paid her no attention. He stared down the sheer rock wall of the prison at the tiny entrance into which Levi and Armin had disappeared, his gut in knots.

"Yes. Regulated water flow. Switch dams. Which fill up automatically each day when…when.. _oh, no! Eren, quick! Inside, now!!"_

____________________________

Armin and Levi ventured down the tunnel. They came to a juncture and turned. "Left, I think."

_Noooooooooo No no no….Nooooooooooo._

It might have been the howl of a wolf. Or the groaning of pipes. Only then there was a sob. _"No! Thissss way…."_

Levi and Armin were back to back, pistols drawn.

"S-sir?" Armin whispered. "Was…was that human?"

Then another groan, of a different type. A slow, heavy moan of shifting metal. Then a rush of air.

"Fuck…fuck, kid, run!"

The yawn of metal gave way to a deafening roar as the automatic intake pipes filled with water. To Armin, it looked like the foaming wrath of a sea god, coming to swallow him whole.

___________________________

Everyone on the upper level froze when the floor rumbled. "Wha–?"

Then, Mikasa was there, grabbing Zoe by the lapels of her jacket.

"Hanji!" she cried, "It's a switch dam! Please, we need to…" she ran into one of the open cells, noting that there were iron grates in the floor.

"Grates," she gasped. "And here in the hall too! Please, we have to…."

________________________

Armin tried to grab hold of a pipe sticking out from the wall and nearly broke his hand, so strong was the current that bore him and Levi through the darkness. The water foamed and splashed as it rounded a bend. Levi seized onto a steel bar, recessed into the wall and put out an arm. He caught Armin.

"Hang on here," he ordered. 

The inflow had slowed, the current weakened but the water rising rapidly. Levi glanced up. There. a grate in the ceiling.

"Where's your rope?" he asked the boy.

"I-I think it's gone," Armin gasped.

"The water will rise," Levi said calmly. And take us to the grate. "Yell, Armin," he ordered. "Loud as you can." And they did.

______________________

Eren heard it first. 

"Armin!" he cried out, "Armin, where are you?" he charged down the hallway, searching in vain for the source of the sound. "Armin!"

 _"Eren! Eren!"_ His lover was screaming. 

It was Sasha's keen eyes that spotted the small white fingers sticking through a grate in one of the cells. "There!" she cried.

The grate was thick and heavy, but it's stone housing was crumbling and chipped. Eren fell on top of it, sickened at the sight of the two pale faces with their enormous eyes staring up at him. 

"Eren," Armin sobbed, "Help us, please!"

They team fell upon the grate, stabbing at the crumbling cement with knives, pulling and prying. It wouldn't budge. The rising water was bringing Armin and Levi closer to them. At the top of the grate, the intake narrowed. There was only room enough for one of them at a time.

______________________

Down in the darkness, Levi took hold of Armin, legs scissoring to hold himself up in the water. "Listen to me," he said firmly, "it's just a misstep. We are getting out. But you must calm down, p'tit. Now, keep your head up and get a good breath. I will be underneath you. When I need to breathe, we will switch. Comprend?"

"I understand, Sir!"

Armin's slender fingers clung to the grate, as he fought for breath, the shapes of his comrades on the upper side of the grate blurring. 

Then, he vanished. Levi appeared, pulling air into his lungs.

The water rose. Armin and Levi switched. Armin's ears were now full of water, and he was unable to hear their screams. There were only a few centimetres of air space left. He pushed his pink lips against the grate, sucking for air.

The grate moved just a fraction.

"Sasha!" Hanji commanded suddenly. "Set a charge. We'll fucking blow it up! Now!"

"Armin," Hanji yelled, "Go down! You've got to submerge!" But Armin couldn't hear her.

It was Eren who pried his little white fingers off of the grate. "Let go," he sobbed. "Let go, pixie…"

___________________________________

Sasha took the shot from the other side of the hallway, drawing back and expertly hitting the little charge planted beside the floor grate. A shower of stone, water and metal tore through the hall. Beneath the floor, another yawn of metal, this time from the other end of the prison.

"Quickly!" Hanji ordered. They approached the blast hole, Armin's pale head surfacing. Mikasa and Eren pulled him out, just as the water level dropped dramatically and rushed out of the tunnel, sweeping Captain Rivaille along with it.

"Heichou!" Eren screamed, "Heichou, nooooo!!"

___________________________________

_Fragile, fierce._

_Fragile, fierce._

_Tiny dark one._

_Dark one sleeps._

It picked his inert, delicate body off of the stone floor. It was so large that it could carry him in one arm, like an infant.

_Broken now. Broken._

It shambled, huge and soundless, along the corridor, deeper into the bowels of Shangun's dungeons. The dark passage was striped with dull squares of light from the grating above.

It stopped beneath a grate, watching the light stripe over the pale, exquisite, silent face.

_Tiny fierce one sleeps now._

They lived in the catacombs. No longer human, it seemed only fit that they should lodge themselves in a shadowed twilight, between life and death.

Here were piled the bones of the evil ones. Here were tombs, unmarked, unknown. Here upon the walls they had taken institutional green paint and tar, and painted enormous, gross caricatures of themselves. Twenty seven. There were twenty seven of them. Bestial, sentient hybrid creatures; part-human, part-titan.

Twenty-seven twisted souls.

And him. The humans had once asked him to watch, and help. _Watch and help._

He was alone. Utterly alone. Except that now he had this silent, dainty, broken butterfly.

He laid the still body onto a wooden table that stood in the centre of the room. With his claws, he opened the jacket, delicately extracting the soaked silk cravat he found rolled inside the pocket. With infinite patience, he put it around the tiny neck, tying it carefully.

Then, he picked up the limp form, and placed it into the dark, cold recess of an empty tomb. He picked up a large boulder, sealing it.

_Broken now. Fragile tiny fierce one broken baby……._

 


	9. The Bonekeeper's Game Part Three

Eren gathered Armin's twisting, soaked form against his body.

There was stunned silence, apart from Armin's hoarse cries of "Heichou! Heichou! No, _Leeevi!"_

Armin lunged forward, as if to throw both arms and his head back down the hole. 

"We have to get him _back!_ We –" he coughed, tasting bile and mud and ammonia.

"Hai," Hanji barked. "Listen to me, now. Mikasa, how did you know about the switch dam?"

"I've studied them, Hanji-san. Waterworks and mills…"

"Ah. Would you be able to locate this building's shut off valve?"

"Yes, Squad Leader." 

"Good. You and Eren. Go. Find it. Springer, Blouse…assemble me some more charges. Quick as you can. And I want you to blast every mother-fucking grate on this floor."

"Armin," she squatted down to where Armin huddled on the floor, "Can you stand?"

"I'm fine…I…"

"Good. Strap on your gear. Quick. Eren, help him. You will come with me. We are going to find Captain Rivaille. _Now."_

Zoe Hanji engaged her gear, clamping in and swinging down into the dank gloom of the tunnel.

__________

Armin trotted down the tunnel after Squad Leader Hanji. He stopped, marking the wall with the white grease stick they all carried for that purpose.

Zoe slowed. "Here," she muttered. "A door, in the wall."

"But," Armin gasped, "S-shouldn't we follow the outflow ports? If he was swept along, he…"

Armin swallowed, fighting to keep a clear head. It was nearly intolerable. Thoughts of Levi crowded out sensibility…Levi, trapped down here in this revolting, filthy darkness. Alone.

It was then that they heard the voice.

_"Door."_

It was low and gutteral.

Zoe Hanji thought, at first, that it might be a blast echo from Sasha and Connie's handiwork on the upper levels.

_"Yesss. Door."_

Zoe's head snapped up. "Why?" she shouted, addressing the darkness. 

_"Raven hair, one boot on, who will miss me when I'm gone?"_

Zoe turned. "Armin?" 

Armin frowned, suddenly remembering having heard the voice, right before the tunnels flooded. 

"Y-yes. Let's go this way. That voice…we heard it earlier. Trying to warn us off the direction we were heading. Only, only we disregarded it. Yes, let's open the door.

_Good. Good sweet boy._

__________

"Woo-hoo, fuck! Did you see that one?" Sasha's bolt had hit home, exploding the charge and sending up a spume of plaster and rebar.

"Daaamn!"

Sasha and Connie crept closer to the hole. "Ew," the archer turned her head, gagging. "Walls' balls, what's rotting down there?"

The two of them leaned in closer. There was a groan of metal, a suspended moment in time when green eyes locked onto clear brown ones in mid-air, then Connie and Sasha plunged, flailing, down into darkness.

__________

_"What will you give?"_

Faintly.

_"What will you give?"_

Louder.

Levi moaned.

_"What will you give the ferryman…when he comes for your soul?"_

Levi clawed his way back to consciousness, fighting through an oozing thickness which filled his nose and mouth. He coughed, disgorging filthy water and blood. Gasped desperately, sucking in dark air, thin and tart, like sandpaper.

"A-Armin? Where…?" He tried to sit up, smashing his forehead and snapping backward.  

 _"Fuck!_ What the hell is…" he raised his hands, passing them over the curious surface a few handspans above his face. Smooth, with carved indentations of some type. Was he trapped? Had part of the building caved in upon them?

"Arlert?"

He couldn't sit up. He reached out to either side of his body, finding he couldn't fully extend his arms. Odd. Such a smooth, even surface.

Regular. Rectangular.

Realization dawned, and Levi's breath hitched in his throat, a fine sweat searing his skin. 

"Shit," It was a small sound in the darkness. It had nowhere to go.

He ran his hands over his clothing, damp and slimy. No gear. No gun. Ah. A small, curved blade has survived his ordeal. That, and a punch flare. Punch flares, smaller and more compact than gun-discharged flares. A flare.

Why couldn't he breathe?

Levi ripped open the flare's packet, gripped it and tamped it against the wall. The flare hissed to life, filling the small space with a stark, bluish light. Cold, raw, veined granite. Dirt caked. There, by his feet, tiny fissures of what might be light. Here, above his head, the rough feel of stone.

And here. In front of his face, the flare illuminated letters carved into the granite: _Rest Eternal._

The flare sputtered out.

Levi screamed.

__________

Connie managed to latch onto something, slowing his plummet. Sasha wasn't as lucky; she scrabbled to keep hold of her bow, missed anchoring in and bounced off the wall twice before landing in a heap.

"Sasha!"

"Aye," she winced. "I'm a'right. Keep your hair on."

Connie swung downward, trying to locate her in the darkness. "Sash?" he asked, waiting for her reply.

Instead of Sasha, Connie Springer heard a deep, hollow, heavy intonation that made every hair on his body stand on end.

_"Bones don't lie."_

__________

Shit. Shit. So…what now? 

Levi tried to slow the frantic hammering of his heart; panic clawing at his gut. Okay. So, he is inside a box. A tomb of sorts. He is inside a tomb become someone has put him here. 

Proof positive that his squad is not alone in Shangun-urku. What happened to Armin?

"Armin!" he shouted. "Eren! Hey, Jaeger!!" Surely someone could hear him. He shouted. He pounded on the stone with the hilt of his small knife. He hollered until his throat was ripped raw.

Stopped.

Slow, hot tears seeped through the sooty lashes, sliding through the muck on his cheeks, into his ears. "E-Erwin?" he whispered, "Erwin?"

__________

He can't kill it if he can't see it. Connie tensed, afraid to flail in the darkness, lest he cut Sasha instead of…

_"Bones don't lie, bones speak true."_

The voice was so resonant that Connie felt it in his sternum.

"S-Sasha? Are you there?"

"Con, run…" her voice was small and tight and terrified. There, around a corner, the darkness was broken by jagged bands of light - the result of Connie and Sasha's blasting.

When Connie's eyes adjusted, he was able to see Sasha, behind a large mound of some type, hugging the far wall, jaw set against her rising terror.

"Con, run ya dumb _shit!"_

"No! I - "

The mound shifted. It was - what the hell was it exactly? Much larger than a man, broad and thick, with what appeared to be a shaggy mane of buff-coloured hair. Hands as large as wagon wheels, terminating in curved claws.

It reached out an enormous hand, fingers parting, claws hooking through the fabric of Sasha's jacket, pinning her to the wall. 

"Connie…fuck sakes, run!" she sobbed.

Connie drew his blades. "L-Let her go!" he snarled, taking a step closer.

The creature slowly raised it's other arm, hand uncurling.

 _"Constans Karl Springer,"_  it said.

Connie blinked, stunned for a moment. He felt oddly emboldened by having it address him.

"Oi! How d'you know me, then? What are you? What d'you want?"

 _"Voices demand to be heard. Voices in the bone."_ It tilted it's wrist, showing Connie two small, pale objects.

"Let my girl go, now!"

_"Choose a bone."_

Connie inched around the beast, blades gleaming dully, until he was a few feet from Sasha. 

She looked at him, tear-streaked face a mask of disbelief and confusion. "Con, it can talk...it knows your _name_...w-what does it want?"

_"Mustn't run. Mustn't…"_

The huge, half-man turned it's bulk to face him. It's face was broad, forehead flat. Wide, amphibious mouth, full of blackened teeth. It looked like the aberrant titans that had attacked at Boxley. Except that, set in it's wide, grotesque face was a pair of round, deep, very clear blue eyes.

__________

He'd pushed at the stone above his head until his shoulders shrieked from the pain. Tapped and knocked on all of the surfaces he could reach, searching for hollows. Kicked with his feet. He'd screamed and raged and panted, sweat cutting hot streams through the filth and muck which encased him.

It finally occurred to Levi that no one could hear him. Not only that, but his hysterics were using up what little oxygen he had left.

He smiled in the blackness. A wry, twisted smile. The lords of the great jest were sick fuckers, toying with him as they had done. He was where he belonged: a piece of dirty flotsam, birthed in a dirty hole no doubt, and now buried in one. 

The cruel joke had occurred in between birth and death, when he'd been cradled in the arms of a man who was at once utterly decent, utterly flawed and had claimed him for his own. He began to fade, the bitter smile frozen on his delicate face.

"Levi?"

He opened his eyes.

"Levi, you fell asleep."

He started, head jerking up, waking with the hyper-vigilance of a career military man. His hands, upon which his head had been resting, twitched. Wood beneath his fingers. Glass-smooth, fine polished wood.

He stared down. Then up. Late autumn sun warmed what appeared to be a small study; dust motes hovered lazily in sunbeams.

Erwin was in front of him, head tilted thoughtfully. He sported a fine beard, neatly trimmed. He had on a white linen shirt, of a strange, loose cut. Then…oh. One sleeve dangled, empty.

"Y-your arm?"

"It's fine. I'm quite able-bodied."

Levi sat upright, eyes furtive. How real this strange place looked. It smelled of crab apples and cedar and leather.

He rubbed his fingers over the grain of the desk.

"You made that," Erwin said, a touch proudly. "Quite a lovely piece. You're a cabinetmaker, now."

"No, I'm not. I'm dead."

Erwin smiled. It fascinated Levi, who realized that the lines of Erwin's face had redistributed themselves somehow; it was a pure, sweet smile. In all the years Levi had known him, Erwin had always smiled through pain, as though forcing sweet cider through a press.

"You're not dead. You're as tough as chewed leather, my angel."

Sadness breaks over Levi, like a bubble.

"I've not lost track of things here, you know." he whispers. "I'm dreaming. Vivid and horrid and full of meaning, as has been the case for the last few months. A last dream. And you have come to help me die."

__________

Such eyes. Such blue eyes.

"Uh…uh, okay," Connie tries to placate the creature, though his mouth is dry as dust. "Y-you've got something that needs saying. Fine just…please, let Sasha go."

He waited.

_"Not yet. Where do your thoughts fly, when you die?"_

"I…Is that..Am I supposed to answer y-you?"

_"Thoughts don't die. Thoughts live. I can hear them."_

It dropped the two tiny white bones onto the floor at Connie's feet.

"D-do I know you?"

_"No. I knew your people. Ragako."_

Connie inched closer, realizing he was mad to do so.

"W-what about Ragako? Do you…do you know what happened to my family?"

_"One bone does know."_

Sasha twisted, craning her neck to see the small bones.

"T-tell me!" Connie snarled. "'Cause I've had nothing but you beasts toying with me for years, and I've had my damn fill of it!"

His emerald eyes blazed, filling with tears.

The creature turned it's head and regarded Sasha. _"Go on,"_ it rumbled. _"Tell him."_

She shook her head. "You…you _thing!_ You leave me well out of this! Stop tormenting him! Tell him whatever you know!"

"Sash?"

_"She dreams."_

Connie was struggling to keep up with the exchanges. 

The creature pointed. _"One bone speaks of Ragako. Past. One bone speaks of Sasha Elin Blouse. Future. You choose."_

Connie swallowed. So this was it? Stuck in the dungeon of a rotting prison with a brain-addled, yellow-haired titan, that purported to hear voices?

"Then...what? After I pick one of your filthy bones? We're both slain?

_"No. After you will leave this place."_

The blue eyes entreated Connie.

He looked at the bones. He didn't know an awful lot about bones. They might have been human. One, long and slender. The other, small and knobby. Whatever the case, his mother and his father, his cousins and his friends were never coming back. No revelation could make it so.

He looked at his lover. Her face was pained. 

"It-it's okay Crazy Daisy," he tried to reassure her. 

Connie Springer pointed a finger at the long slender bone. "That one. Future."

The creature picked up the bone daintily, a seemingly impossible task for it's thick clawed fingers.

_"She dreams. For many weeks now. Tell him."_

Sasha looked at Connie. "Aye. I-I had a dream, Con…I see a girl. A girl with s-silver hair."

"Really?" Connie looked from Sasha, to the beast, and back again.

"A silver-haired girl. It must be my mother!"

_"Not mother."_

And Connie felt it in his bones before the beast spoke his next words:

_"Your daughter."_

 

 


	10. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm adding an eruri tag for this chapter. As much as the core ship is, and will remain, Eren and Armin...there are relationships and events around them which influence their story. Some of these ships are nudging for their own space, so there you go...hoping that ppl will be cool with it all...so...eruri.

Zoe Hanji would later recount that the transformation happened as she walked down a flight of stone stairs, deeper into the bowels of Shangun prison. She'd been watching and listening for Levi; keen, ale-brown eyes alert for the slightest sign of his passing; a swatch of green fabric, a swipe of grease paint. A discarded flare wrapper.

When suddenly, there it was. As familiar as home, faint as the last light of a dying winter's evening. His _smell._

Sweat. Not full-bodied, but citrus-musky. Black tea. Cyprus soap. Lemon rinse. This was marred by metallic fear, sharp and futile.

Through the stench of the prison's sewer, the notes caught inside of her nose.

"Armin!" she cried, "Can't you _smell_ him?"

"S-sorry?"

"Levi! He's alive!" she pelted down the stairs so quickly that Armin couldn't keep up.

__________

 "Come," Erwin held out his hand.

"Where?"

"I want to show this to you. This is our home."

"No, it's not! It's nothing of the sort. It's a bit of underdone turnip stuck in my guts that I can't shit out. It's a fucking dream. Go away."

Levi rose, unsure of exactly what to do next, yet knowing every corner of the solid, grey stone house.

"Does the house displease you?" Erwin sounded sad.

"What the _fuck_ were you thinking, taking me into your bed?" Levi snorted. "You've brought this on yourself. Come tomorrow…come tomorrow some poor bastard will ride out from Bone Road to tell you that I'm dead. _Dead._ And then you'll…you'll…"

It didn't bear thinking about.

"I'll what?"

"Stupid asshole," Levi put a hand to his mouth, clamped tightly against the worst pain he'd ever felt. "You stupid, stupid… _fuck!"_

And then he was enfolded in Erwin's skin scent, warm and rich and soothing. Erwin's broad, heavy hand stroked his hair, slow as syrup, calming him.

"Levi, let me show you," Erwin murmured.

The stone house had a glassed-in conservatory. Here, a myriad of potted plants fought for space. Beyond the glass walls stood a paddock and barn. The fences were solid, and uniform.

"I suppose I built those, too." Levi muttered.

"Yes."

"And the horse?" Levi gestured to the dark, graceful beast grazing at the side of the paddock. "Louis de Soleil's grandson." said Erwin.

"And…and Eren?"

"Doctor Jaeger. He breeds fine animals."

Levi leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. This was utterly awful…these moments of nostalgia, of revelation, of coming to terms with the fate of one's loves. His death was meant to be what his life had been: short, sharp and brutal. Instead, here it was, being drawn out, sweet and fine, like a stream of honey.  
__________

Squad Leader Hanji ran, guided by an instinct she couldn't name. Left, right, right, left. The tunnel opened up into a cavern. Here, torchlight sputtered and danced against the walls. Hanji stopped short, chest rising and falling, trying to get her bearings.

"Armin?"

Nothing.

"Armin?" she looked behind her. "Shit. Arlert?"

 _"Can't you smell him? Where did he go?"_ the voice, deep as a chasm, rumbled.

"Damn!" Zoe dove soundlessly to the floor of the cavern, rolling, coming up with blades crossed. "Show yourself!"

_"I asked if you could smell my sweet boy."_

There. A hulking shape, in the shadows. It leaned forward. Zoe regarded it, steadily, methodically. She took in the apelike slope of it's huge shoulders; the buff-coloured pelt of hair. The dark, toadish slash of it's wide mouth. Broad, flat nose. Thick hands, terminating in cursive claws.

A titan. And yet, not...

"H-hello," she ventured. "Will…will you speak to me?"

The creature inclined forward. It's eyes were utterly incongruous; calm, jewel blue.

_"Can you smell my child?"_

Zoe Hanji swallowed. "Who is….who is your child? A-are there more of you?"

_My child, my child, my little one, my boy has a little blue jacket, and a book my…._

"Armin," Zoe breathed, her fine eyes huge behind her thick glasses. She trembled.

"You are…you are Ingo Arlert. H-hello…"

_"Tell me…my child's scent…."_

Zoe had a headache. Or more exactly, a sense of pressure, of too much inflow into too tiny a space. And that space was her nostrils.

And yet…"A-Armin…Armin, he…"

She inhaled, tasting odd things on her tongue as though it had become a separate creature . A thin sweat…nervous, acidic and yet…underneath that…new rain, fresh sap, sunshine…

"He went that way," she pointed…"and he's wandering further away…I should…"

 _"You chewed cactus leaves,"_ the creature rumbled. She didn't understand at first…it's accent was odd, southern. Cac _-toose_ leaves.

"I…what?"

It held out it's enormous hand. On it's palm, rested a tiny bone.

_"You chewed cactus leaves. A clear night, stars scattered like rice…you were soaring, just watching the sky…"_

It's voice changed then, taking on a familiar tone that raised Zoe's hackles, _"I tell you, that…well that was the only time's she'd stopped her chatter long enough for me to catch those lips of hers…I'd 'ave been more likely to catch fog in a jar, but I caught her, so I did…"_

Zoe stared, riveted.

"How? How can you speak those words?" she breathed. Her first night with Mike. Had she written it down? Had this…this _thing_ read it somewhere? Because Mike certainly hadn't ever written much of anything...

_"Bones speak. Bones speak to me."_

She shook her head furiously…"No. Bones _don't_ speak. That's not possible. It- it's not logical. You must have known him…to know that…"

A low, thrum filled the cavern. It was laughing at her.

_"All bones speak, Zoe…everything we know, everything we are…stored in the bones…All Mike was…All Mike is…"_

It extended two massive fingers; hooked, purplish claws capturing the small, white knuckle bone, and offered it to her.

_"Bone comes home."_

__________

_I don't have a skin like you do_  
 _To keep it all in like you do_  
 _I don't have a soul like you do_  
 _The only one I have is the one_  
 _I stole. From you. ~London Grammar_

Oh, God, did it still happen?

He was in the bed, in the room at the top of the stairs; the bed with the iron frame that banged against the wall, over time smashing a dent into the plaster. The bed with the new mattress: rather than being a stuffed pallet, it had springs, which sang and whined when Erwin fucked him.

Levi lay on his back, restless, sticky between the legs, nerves abraded.

_"Angel,"_

The word licked his insides. Levi had assumed that when one died, all of one's memories became available, presented like brightly-coloured fruit, for one last sampling. And yet he couldn't remember…remember exactly when Erwin realized that sometimes Levi climaxed and didn't drift back down…that he walked a sweet wire, body keening for a second release. But Erwin _had_ come to know this, and God, he gave Levi what he needed most.

"Come here," Erwin spoke softly.

"You-you've got to be kidding me," Fuck, he sounded so needy.

"Come,"

Erwin lay on his back, the long muscular lines of his body languid, relaxed. His cock curled, contented, in the golden thatch of hair. Levi's passage ached, his backside and thighs slapped hot. Erwin had fucked him, and he had been thorough about it.

"Lay with me,"

Trembling, Levi crawled on top of Erwin, his head on the Commander's chest, his legs falling to either side of Erwin's thick thigh. Levi pressed his erection into the firm flesh, moaning.

"Why…why?" his voice was so hoarse.

Erwin's large hand drifted down his pale back, gripping his muscular little bottom, a finger settling inside his hole, two more easing ahead of the first to stroke the sweet pad of skin.

"There, now…there…"

Levi's eyes were open, sweet silver and staring across the room at a water jug, which began to swirl and warp as he wept. He saw his own hand in front of his face, fisting the linen of Erwin's white, open shirt, grasping and releasing, like a baby learning that it has a hand.

His tongue flicked out, catching Erwin's thick, pink nipple. His head eased forward, just enough for him to take the nipple between his thin lips.

He began to suckle, rocking against Erwin's thigh…easily, lazily, coaxing the ache from his cock. Erwin's fingers fucked him tenderly, following the languid rhythm.

"I..I…Erwin, I never…" he couldn't find the words; they were flying away like clothes off a line in a storm. His belly rippled, and his hips stuttered unevenly. He growled, feeling Erwin's fingers sink into him with authority, pushing him over the brink, milking him, demanding.

Levi thrust and fucked against Erwin's thigh, releasing exquisitely, mouth open against his lover's chest, panting. Erwin's hard nipple poked against his slack, lower lip, like a seed pearl.

Contentment washed over him, his pain and fear leaching out with the receding tide. Levi had always told himself that his come sank into Erwin's skin, became part of Erwin, so that Erwin in turn became less and less able to resist him, to deny him, to ever push him away. He will never, ever tell Erwin this. Not even now, at the end.

"I know, anyway. All of it." says the warm, loving voice against his hair.

__________

Some men are born knowing their place in the world. Some come to know it in their youth. Others upon reaching the apex of their power. Levi found it ironic and unsurprising that he had come to understand his own worth in the last few minutes of his life.

He wandered around the orderly, whitewashed kitchen in the stone house that he might have come to share with Erwin. He touched the table, which he had made, the brass hooks on the wall. A coat rack, containing an umbrella, some jackets, and a long grey scarf, with a red stripe at one end.

He looked at Erwin, who was leaning in the doorway, his single arm braced against the doorframe.

"Mikasa made it for you," he explains. "After the reclamation, she unravelled her infamous scarf. She took the old wool and added red stripes into new grey scarves, which she knitted for each of you."

Levi smiled. _Mikasa._

He walked over to a shallow shelf, bearing a few colourful teacups.

"Now that's a proper teacup," he picked one up. It was solid, large-handled and white. It was painted with a border of small black feathers.

"I gave you that," Erwin told him. "I thought you'd appreciate the sturdy handle."

"Hah," Levi snorted.

He lifted a smaller cup, turquoise blue, from the shelf.

"Hey, I know this cup. It's Armin's," he chuckled.

"It's so fucking small. He gets so distracted that he never finishes his tea before it gets cold, so he chose a small cup. I guess he comes here often? For tea?"

He smiled at Erwin. Erwin's handsome face clouded. He shook his head slowly. "Levi, I'm sorry…"

"No, Erwin! He…he drops by, doesn't he? Why not? Am I too much of an asshole? He won't visit?"

"He would've loved to visit with you," Erwin's voice was quiet and horrible. "He can't visit. We lost him in Shangun-uruk."

"No!!" Levi shook his head violently, "No, Erwin… _no, fuck, please…"_

"Well then," Erwin said firmly, "you'd better find a way to get out of that stone box then, hadn't you?"


	11. Come Find Me

It was the same feeling; that feeling of instant recognition, of familiarity. Seeing her loved one's favourite shirt, or his handwriting on an envelope. Smelling a pot of his soup simmering on the wood stove. Hearing his voice. Only there was no writing, no shirt. All that remained was a knuckle bone. And his beautiful voice.

A knuckle bone being offered to her by a monster several times her size, of shocking appearance and questionable sanity. And as much as she wanted to enfold the little bone inside her fist, her first priority was the safety of her squad.

"Ingo," she raised her face to look into the blue eyes, serene in the middle of the distorted visage, "Ingo, please. Where is Levi?"

"Levi dreams. Safe."

"He lives?"

"He lives a hundred lives."

Zoe stepped forward, but did not sheath her blades.

"Ingo, what happened here?"

The creature that had been Ingo Arlert pushed his thick neck out toward her, fixing her with a penetrating stare that threatened to ice her blood.

"Twenty-seven men. Left in the dark to die."

When he said nothing further, Zoe whispered, "A-and then?"

"And then the beast came."

__________

The tunnels groaned and yawned. Eren and Mikasa had made their way through the lower levels, finding themselves in front of a huge sluice gate which opened to the outside. The air whistling through the sluice smelled fresh and cold.

"See," Mikasa pointed, "The sluice is weighted. When enough water trickles in, it trips the gate and the entire system flushes the sewers."

Eren frowned, staring at his sister. "How d'you even _know_ that?" he snorted.

She shrugged. "You know about horses. I'm learning about other things."

"Horses are practical."

"So is plumbing. Now help me close this."

The two siblings strained to turn a huge, red iron wheel. 

"Good," Mikasa gasped, "It's closing."

A shadow fell across the gate. It took Eren and Mikasa a split second to realize that the shadow was not the cast by the gate itself. By then it was too late. A huge dark form, powerful and quick, passed by them in the darkness, disappearing down the tunnel and leaving a thick, acrid odor in it's wake.

__________

Hanji's sharp brown eyes flicked from the tiny bone sitting between them, back to the pale titan's face. 

"The beast? Y-you mean the same beast that killed Squad Leader Zacharius?"

"The same."

"So…"

"The beast came to Shangun. He is a coordinate. He infected a few of the inmates. These shifted into titan forms. Powerful forms. These few infected the rest of us. We also took on titan forms."

Zoe's lips moved rapidly, soundlessly, as the pale titan's sonorous words filled the underground chamber. "How? How was infection passed?"

Ingo cast his eyes downward, silent.

"H-How, Ingo? Please!"

His wide, amphibious mouth opened slowly, dark lips peeling back to reveal a jagged row of teeth, each as long as Hanji's forearm, and razor sharp. "Bite."

Despite her trepidation, Hanji took another step forward. She trembled, a combination of fear, and fascination. "At Boxley…in the battle. There were four titans that had an appearance similar to yours," she swallowed. "Not large. Wide-mouthed. Shaggy-haired, and sentient. Sharp-fanged."

"We began as twenty-seven. Four slain at Boxley. Leaving twenty-three."

"So, the mangler-type titans slain at Boxley were inmates?"

"Were murderers."

"Oh… _oh my_ …" Zoe knelt on the cave floor, wondering if she would live to recount any of the story. "And…"

"No." the deep blue eyes flew open, boring into hers. "I am doing the asking now. I want to know about my child. Tell me about Armin."

__________

It flashed between Eren and Mikasa, a huge, cloaked shape. The young soldiers might have convinced themselves it was some sort of anomaly, some dark patch of bewitched air. Except that it's smell hung in the air after it passed. Hate, blood and hunger. Eren's face contorted into a snarl, blades flashing as he prepared to fly after it. 

It was Mikasa that heard a different kind of roar, that froze her cold. "Eren!" she cried, "The water! We need to finish closing the gate or we'll be flooded again!"

Above their heads, the girders and walls of Shangun-uruk groaned, weakened by Connie and Sasha's blasts.

__________

"Fuck…. _fuck, fuck, fuck!!"_ Four wasted breaths that Levi would probably never get back. He was running out of air and running out of patience. He'd been over every square inch of the tomb that he could reach. He kicked at the stone in frustration. His boot hit solid granite several times, then it struck another surface that returned a hollow sound. He tapped against it again with his heel. And it echoed.

Levi growled in the darkness, twisting and contorting. "Fucking…son of a whore!! _Fuck!!"_

He'd managed to work himself sideways, neck contorted to near-snapping, and legs tucked up so his knees pressed up against his chest. When sideways, his head and tailbone were wedged against the sides of the enclosure. 

He wriggled a bit more, scraping his scalp and the side of his face bloody, then popping free. He was reversed, his head now where his feet had been.

He fumbled with his fingers, finding a round pipe opening in the wall, about the diameter of an egg. And the egg was speaking to him.

"Pull, Eren…" echoed faintly through the pipe.

"Pull," Levi repeated, breathlessly, momentarily frozen then mad with relief. "Fu - Jaeger!! Mikasa! Jaeger, _you fuck!_ Can you hear me??"

___________

It's this way.

No, wait. It's the other way.

_Oh, no…_

Armin sighed. He was going around in circles. He'd seen that particular pillar before, with four rusty hooks sticking out of it, in this vaulted underground chamber. 

He'd counted four huge chambers in all. Inside one of them, someone - or something - had taken whitewash and made macabre drawings. Twenty-seven coarse figures, with fangs and wide mouths and claws. They looked like the titan he had slain at Boxley. The one that had bitten him and given him an infection. He'd become so ill that he'd nearly died. Squad Leader Hanji had saved his life, formulating a serum which allowed his body to fight back.

He smiled in the darkness. Over time, humanity had gained some understanding of the titans, at least. Chief Science Officer Hanji knew how to create antidotes. Granted, they were hit and miss. Eren had learned how to shift at will. And how to retain enough cognizance to perform tasks and to fight in titan form. So had two others. 

Levi had taught his squad how to kill the new mangler-type titans. They had a weak point inside of their mouths, and a well-aimed pike thrust would kill them. Armin had done it. He snorted in the darkness. Hell, if he could manage to do it, anyone could.

He crept along, torn between calling out for his squad mates, and listening carefully. The only corpses they had found belonged to the prison guards. Not a single inmate had been discovered. The prisoners hadn't died inside these walls. The cell bars had been bent; doors torn off. Stone tunnels had been smashed. Evidence pointed toward the prisoners themselves transforming into titan form. 

It had happened before, at Connie's home village of Ragako. That day, Connie's face had changed, its happy lines becoming pinched with a haunted pain. Armin's thoughts circled around to the fate of his own father, Ingo. He'd been prepared for the possibility of finding Ingo's remains. But there had been no remains. Only bent bars. And the possibility that his father, the lone ally of the military hidden amongst the prisoners, was now a titan as well.

Armin stopped, utterly annoyed. He wasn't being of much use. He needed to redouble his efforts to locate the others, particularly Levi.

He slumped against the pillar, his fine brow furrowed.

His torch guttered out.

"Dammit!" he hissed.

And then he heard it. A voice, low and silky, like syrup.

"Hello, Armin," it said.

__________

Zoe Hanji found herself smiling. Armin as a cadet had been so small. So fragile. And so utterly fierce. Like a tiny lion, underfed it's due share of milk. 

He'd clung to Eren, and to Mikasa. And later, to Jean and to Marco. He'd become like a son to Erwin. He'd discovered a deep bond with Levi that was incongruous and made no sense to either of them. Levi gave him things no one else could.

Armin loved his friends. He'd chosen a family for himself because his own…

"Had left him." the three words, spoken by the titan Ingo, fell like heavy stones into the cavern.

"Yes," Zoe had stopped wondering if the pale, shaggy form would lunge at her and rip out her throat. It seemed to matter less than the information she was gathering. "And I know Armin would very much like to know why."

Ingo's massive hands came up slowly. He held them in front of his face, as though seeing them for the first time and finding them to be something of a mystery.

"My Armin knows what he knows from books. Seas. Salt flats. Mountains. Creatures. Stars. I too know about all of these things. And much more."

He looked at the small form of the scientist before him. "I have dreamed about these things, all of my life. Waking dreams. Visions. I have dreamed about cities and roads of stone. About wars and machines and kings. About caves and fires, and the valley out of which humanity first walked. 

I have dreamed about our government, neutering the minds of humankind, in order to induce compliance. I came to believe that our salvation lay in reawakening ourselves. A small group of us wanted to bring about this reawakening…to reengage the collective mind of mankind.

I worked closely on a serum to stimulate the mind, with Doctor Grisha Yeager, Eren's father. We would meet, and talk, while our children played.

There were other men and women of like mind; not many. We were, ultimately, found out. My wife and I ran, to draw the attention of the authorities away from Armin. Johanna died. I was apprehended.

I made a deal with the military and I was brought to Shangun-uruk. I survived here on my wits, making trades. Eleven years ago, Grisha came to see me, in the guise of a doctor coming to examine the inmates. He gave me a vial of the serum we'd been working on. It was designed to heighten my dreams; to uncover my memories.

I kept this hidden in my cell for many years. When Maria fell, and we were abandoned here to die, I contemplated injecting myself with it. 

Then, the beast came. I heard the roars of the others. I heard them smash their cell walls. I heard the screams of the guards.

The inmates came for me. They were ravenous, excited. Liberated. Enraged. I was grabbed, held down, bitten. I remember weeping. I also remember plunging the syringe into my arm. I believe I prayed for death.

Instead…" he sighed, a sound like an enormous, ancient bellows. "Instead, the serum mixed with my blood. I took on the form that you see. There is no going back. The change is permanent. And yes, the twenty-three remaining do have intelligence. They are not mindless. They are ruthless. They are smart. However," he intoned, "I am the only visionary. I alone hear the voices in the bone."

He looked down. Zoe knelt, staring up at Ingo Arlert with a mix of pity and fascination. Behind her glasses, tears filled her eyes and ran down her soft cheeks.

Ingo nodded his enormous head. With great delicacy, he picked up the knuckle bone and placed it into her outstretched palm. "I am sorry," he said. "I was at Utgard that day. There was nothing I could do."

Zoe's hand closed over the bone. She held her fist against her cheek, smiling through her tears. "Is that why I can smell everything?" she addressed the spirit that was always with her. "Is it you, my love?"

__________

The clang of the sluice slamming home reverberated around the chamber. Eren and Mikasa leaned on the huge iron wheel, drenched in sweat, and weak with relief.

Eren pulled a few breaths into his body, gathering himself to chase down the black shape that had passed between him and Mikasa.

_…..Jaeger…._

It was faint, like wind. Eren put his ear to the pipe. Had he imagined it?

_"...Jaeger, you little fuck! Answer me!…"_

Eren's face suffused with joy. "Boss! Boss, where are you?"

__________

Zoe Hanji was on the verge of earmarking her conversation as the first summit of sorts between humanity and titankind. She was surprised at the speed with which Ingo moved. His head shot up, eyes hard and fierce. Suddenly, he took four or five quick steps away from her, scenting the air, and beginning to growl.

"Zoe," he rumbled, shambling off down a corridor, "Zoe, run! _Run!"_

"But…" she took a few questioning steps after him. Then she heard another voice inside her head...the one most familiar to her.

_"Run, girl! Get out of there, quick!"_

She stowed the knucklebone in her breast pocket, armed herself and shot out of the chamber, barrelling headlong into Connie and Sasha.

__________ 

The police could never figure out why convicted murderer Boris Menchen hung his victims on meathooks. All of them young, blond boys. Sodomized, tortured, and strangled. And hung on meathooks, like grisly trophies.

Boris Menchen had been a butcher. At some point, his knives and cleavers had begun to speak to him, whispering of their discontent with ham hocks and sausages. Thirsting for something sweet and tender and pure.

Something like Armin Arlert.

The dark titan, who could move like the wind, lurked at the back of the last underground chamber in Shangun-uruk, watching the lone little soldier.

Oh, he was sweet. Tentative. Night-blind, and fumbling with his torch. 

"Armin," the dark titan spoke, low, and soft. "I have been waiting for you."

Armin gasped, adrenalin shooting through his body. He could barely hear for his heart roaring in his ears. He fumbled with the torch, dropping his flint in the darkness. Shit, _shit!_

With his back against the pillar, he drew his blades in the darkness.

"Who's there?" he called, his voice clear and even. 

A low chuckle, like tumbling stones. "Why son, it's your father. Come closer so I can see you...


	12. A Legacy of Dreams

Levi had called out, mouth pressed to the pipe in the wall until breath failed him and his throat was lacerated. He had flipped onto his belly and lay with his forehead pressed against the cold stone, gasping.

 "Eren…Mikasa…" he called weakly, "please…"

He felt lightheaded, his lungs parched as he gasped for air.

In spite of the futility of doing so, he began to claw at the stone. He clawed, and he wept softly. Then he slipped into blackness.

__________

Eren and Mikasa followed the intake pipe as far as they could, until it vanished into a wall. Eren flew against the wall, smashing it angrily with his fists. 

"What now?" his voice was raw with frustration.

"Sssh," Mikasa said softly. "Wait. I…I don't hear anything." She rapped on the pipe sharply, with the hilt of her blade. Nothing. 

"We need to get through this wall," she scanned the passage, left and right.

"I've had," Eren shouted, his temper rising, "just about enough of this _fucking, Wall-forsaken pit!"_

He gassed forward, flying along the passage, vanishing upward through one of the blast holes.

"Eren!" Mikasa called after him, not for the first time, nor the last.

The siblings found themselves back in the upper prison walk, by the cells. There, close to the window that had been their entry point, Squad Leader Hanji stood, poring over the remains of the map, nodding to herself as she'd now seen enough of Shangun-uruk to make some sense of it.

Sasha and Connie crouched on the floor, furiously wrapping charges. Sasha's dirty face was tear-streaked. Connie looked grim.

"Jaeger! Ackerman!" Hanji grabbed Eren by the shoulders, "Levi is alive! I know where, but we can't reach him from inside."

Mikasa nodded, relaying to Hanji the trail of sound that she and Eren had followed. 

"We're wasting time!" Eren's green eyes blazed with impatience. "I'm going back down!"

"No," Zoe grabbed his arm, "I know where he is… _exactly_ where...let's just say I can almost smell him. We need to get to him from the outside. We need you, Eren!" 

She glanced around. "Where the hell is Arlert?"

__________

_Brother! Big brother, can you see me?_

Isabel's sweet chirpy voice. Levi never thought he'd hear it again. Isabel. She stands in a warm, soft light, holding out her hand.

_Big brother, come with us! It's okay now..._

Only it wasn't. Beneath the sweet, floating peace Levi was experiencing, something was sucking him backward, into the nightmare.

It was a roar. 

It began as a distant rumble, gathered energy, spiralling and unleasing over Shangun Prison. The dark, airless hole which contained Levi began to shudder, and then to shake.

Eren Jaeger, the rogue titan, roared his fury again, bashing his huge, molten fists into the wall, intending to rip Shangun-uruk apart, brick by brick.

__________

"I…I can't see," Armin gasped softly, groping for his flint.

"Don't fear," came the voice out of the darkness, "I know the way. Come with me, my child."

Armin pressed himself further back against the stone pillar. He unsheathed both blades. He was trembling, sweat running in rivulets down his body. 

"Do you still like to read?" the kind voice broke the silence, "Do you read about the sea?"

Armin's mind was racing. Surely, no titan he'd ever come across had wanted to discuss books with him. And yet, if this really was his father, why on earth hadn't he made himself known earlier? Was it because he was in titan form? How could he not know that the squad was in such distress? Was Ingo even concerned? He didn't sound concerned. The disembodied tone was smooth and deep, and not at all urgent.

Was his father's voice always this silken? Armin remembered him as a slight, sandy-haired man, nearsighted, forever misplacing his handkerchief, or his pencils. He took Armin to the duck pond to play with Eren. Sometimes, he bought Armin a little bag of roasted chestnuts. Ingo hadn't always finished sentences. Like his son, he'd been prone to stutter under duress. His tongue would trip over his mind, like a child learning to jump rope. Had he changed so much?

"Da?" Armin called out, tentatively. "D-do you remember the duck pond?"

The boy's fear was delicious. It had a tang, close to passion. He was backed up against a pillar, trembling, his large eyes scanning vainly against the darkness. His voice was gentle, edging on raspy, and it set the dark creature's spine on edge.

"Yes, my son. I do remember."

A small nod from the boy.

"And…and do you remember buying chestnuts for me?"

"Yes, Armin."

"And…" deep breath now, "and taking me there to play with...Marco?"

"Of course."

_A lie._

Armin hit his jets, springing away from the pillar and latching onto the only shape he could make out, a ledge high above the floor, near the vaulted ceiling. Scrabbling, he ripped open his punch flare with his teeth, smacking it against his thigh, searing the cavern in blue light.

Lurking below him, inches from where he'd been planted against the pillar, was a mangler titan, about two metres in height, glaring at him with soulless black eyes, rimmed with red.

Armin's eyes darted about the chamber, locating the doorway, and he swung towards it. His hook refused to set in the crumbling plaster and he fell, landing on his blade and gashing his forearm. 

The black titan's voice changed then….corrosive and hateful… _"Pretty baby….pretty bleeding baaaabbbyyy…"_

The sound was cut off as a large, pale shape lunged out of the darkness, launching itself at the black titan, crying out in a voice Armin recognized immediately, despite it's depth: "Armin, run, lad! Fast as you can!!!"

"No, Da! No!" Armin wheeled around to face the two titans, locked together, wheeling and smashing against the cavern walls. Stone and plaster showered down into the chamber, which groaned and shifted. Armin flew, like a wasp, slashing vainly at the black titan's legs. It growled, landing a kick, and Armin collapsed, blood spraying against the pillar as he fell.

__________

The towering rage was overwhelming. It charged Eren's blood, blurred his vision and made rational thinking nearly impossible. It was always like this. He functioned through a near-paralyzing fury, his sister's entreaties and instructions seeming like the tiny kisses of a butterfly. He saw colours, heat, shapes. He saw things that no human could ever see: his own human body, suspended in a shadow world, where it could be made and remade, again and again.

Somewhere, deep inside the hellish walls of Shangun-uruk lay Levi, who was close to drawing his last breath, and Armin, his angel.

Eren struck the wall with his fists, and with his feet, blocks crumbling and crashing down into the swamp below the mesa. He'd made a hole. Mikasa was screaming at him, pointing. 

Eren reached slowly into the hole.

Levi fit into his two cupped hands, limbs akimbo like a delicate, broken puppet. His heichou. His guardian. His champion. Eren cradled the tiny form, tilted back his head and bellowed. His roar echoed down the valley, deafened the Garrison at Bone Road, and reverberated for miles around. 

__________

_It hurts._

_Oh, it hurts._

They always tried to pull him out too soon. The pulling and tugging ripped his skin, searing the tendons. His face was still enmeshed in the wreckage of his titan form, so he couldn't even beg them to stop.

Only Armin knew exactly how long to wait. How to do it. Where was Armin? _Where was his Armin?_

He is whole, somehow. Missing patches of skin, but intact. The first few breaths feel like an inferno. His stomach clutches and spasms. He throws up, retching into the ashen carcass he has discarded. 

"Muh - "

"Ssshhh," Mikasa soothes him, her touch light and cool on his scorched skin. His shirt has fused to his chest. He pulls, taking hair and skin with it.

He looks up at her wordlessly, green eyes bright with tears. _He can barely remember a time when he wasn't a monster._

He doesn't want to ask, but needs to: "Boss?"

She nods.

"A-Armin?"

She freezes.

__________

Levi came to, drawing a mass of air into his wiry body, contorting. His eyes burned from the acrid stench of titan bones settling back to earth. Hands tried to help him to sit up, and he brushed them away, finding touch excruciating. 

"I'm fine," he managed to huff out. Mikasa was there, regarding him levelly. She wore her red scarf.

_One day, she will unravel it, and give everyone a small strand of herself. Including me._

Connie and Sasha stood, supporting one another, Connie's hand protectively over Sasha's midriff.

Hanji's face is in his, her sharp eyes looking into his own through her thick goggles. "Levi?"

He nods. Turns his head.

Eren has crawled over to him. He reaches out, touching Levi's arm. His face is a mass of welts, his eyebrows and lashes burned away.

"Boss," he rasps, "Sir, I tried to find him, too…I…"

Levi stood, shakily. They were on a green verge, in front of the rubble that was Shangun-uruk. The west and north wall still stood. The eastern face had buckled, exposing the inner courtyard. Much of the south face had collapsed, sliding into the surrounding wet lowland.

"Where," Levi asked in a slow, level voice, "is Armin?"

No one answers him.

__________

Mikasa remained at the verge with Eren, who had succumbed to his regeneration and lost consciousness. Sasha and Connie were dispatched back to Bone Road for horses and reinforcements.

Levi and Hanji began the search for Armin.

"Arlert!" their voices echoed off the shredded walls as they called for him. 

Presently, they found themselves in what remained of the inner courtyard. A stench, creeping and foul permeated the air.

Why the titan hadn't yet melted down to ashes was unclear. It was a little over two metres in length, dark-skinned, with a shaggy pelt and insidious eyes that bulged like orbs of black agate. It had been smashed beneath a massive portcullis, it's flesh driven into the ground at points. It's head and shoulders twisted up at an impossible angle, displaying a row of huge, jagged teeth. Levi approached warily.

"Ugly fuck," he cursed under his breath. 

Suddenly, the monster let out a long wheezing gurgle.

Levi gave a bark of surprise, moving like lightning and jamming his longpike into it's palate. The mass of flesh quivered; the dark eyes milking over in death.

Levi gave a derisive snort.

"Twenty-two," said Hanji, counting down backwards.

"Twenty-two what?"

__________

The pale titan had crawled a hundred yards or so from the wreckage. He'd left a trail of blood, sticky and ruby-black in the grass. He was larger than the black titan they had found; broad shouldered, covered in pale hair, thick-necked.  He'd been bitten, gashed and bruised. Blood matted his flaxen hair in clumps. His bones had been broken. He had enormous, spatulate hands, terminating in cursive claws. 

"Surround it," Levi ordered tersely.

"Sir, let me approach?" Zoe interrupted.

"No," snarled Levi, assuming Hanji's request stemmed from her habitual scientific curiosity.

"Please," she begged. "I-I know him."

Levi stared at Hanji as if she was off her head. He pointed at the prone titan with an exaggerated flourish of his blade. "Go on then, four-eyes."

Zoe trembled, approaching slowly. Overhead, a slight breeze blew, mottling the prone figure beneath the trees in leafy shadow. He lay on his side, arms crossed protectively over his chest; huge, spatulate hands cradling something to his breast. It was then that Zoe saw it: a tiny, pale foot, devoid of it's boot, poking out of the creature's embrace.

"Armin!" she cried. The small foot moved. "Armin!" She fell to her knees, peering into the pale titan's hands.

Armin was conscious, but badly dazed. He lay against his father's chest, fists curling into the pelt, blue eyes dilated and unseeing. His breath came in short, sharp puffs, like a wounded bird. His forearm sported a long, shallow cut, which oozed blood.

"Armin," Zoe reached in, touching the blond head. Ingo rumbled, stirring. Slowly the large blue eyes, so like Armin's, opened. They were tranquil.

"I protected...my child. My sweet boy" he intoned weakly. He held Armin against his heart.

Chief Science Officer Zoe Hanji wept unabashedly. "Ingo," she urged gently, "Ingo…you need to give him to me now."

"No," a tiny, hoarse sound. Armin's voice. "No, please. J-Just for a while. Leave me be, while I can still hear his heart beating…"

Zoe fumbled into her pouch, pulling out a strip of linen. This, she tied around Armin's arm.

The large head moved, the calm eyes looking at her. "Please," he said, "I have words for Levi."

Zoe motioned and Levi approached, his normally neutral visage registering astonishment.

He reached out a hand, "Armin! Is he...?"

"He," the deep, sonorous voice replied, "is my child. And I abandoned him. And I shall not do so….again."

Levi glanced at Hanji, then back at the pale titan with the calm, deliberate voice. The titan's eyes, startling blue and endless, seemed to gaze into his soul.

"Ah," Ingo said slowly, "there you are, _yahudah_. For how many thousands of years have you walked among us? We dreamers number few. And you are the strongest among us. My little one dreams because my blood flows in his veins. He comes from a long line of dreamers, of seafarers. But you, Levi. You dream for all mankind. Your line stretches back….back to the dawn of memory..."

Ingo stopped, his large form shuddering. _"Levi…Olduvai…Euphrates…Masada…Jerusalem…Dachau…Manhattan…Apocalypse…Sina_ …you are…" he coughed raggedly, "you are the best of what we are…you are every man…you are…the strength of humanity… _dream well, warrior…heed the voices…in the bone…"_

The kind eyes slid closed for the last time.

"Wait," Levi begged, "please…"

None of them moved. The shadows lengthened, casting spears of yellow light through the broken teeth of Shangun prison. Ingo stirred, and with that, exhaled a final breath.

"Da?" Armin whispered. The heartbeats had stopped. Ingo was free, and new dreamers had awakened to the voices in the bone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a short epilogue!
> 
> Thank you so very much for reading this accidentally long fic! It turned into a bit of an adventure...I hope it was enjoyable, and comments are most welcome! xoxo


	13. Epilogue

The River Festival was held in the picturesque town of Boxley.

It was a night of remembrance, and reaffirmation. Farmers, soldiers and townspeople fashioned little floating cups out of dried husks or bark. These cups held candles, flowers, or small notes written on birchbark. At nightfall, celebrants released their tiny cups into the river, with whispered prayers of love and hope.

The evening shadows deepened, painting the riverbank in plum and black and indigo. Mikasa, Eren and Armin knelt together, releasing candles into the river for their families. Their cups were shaped like little swans; Mikasa had made them. 

Levi watched the childhood friends silently, their three heads bowed, of one accord. Then, he wandered upriver, alone. He knelt at the edge of the bank, placing two tiny cups into the water. Each one held a bravery feather, and a small tea candle. The little lights bobbed away from the bank, glimmering brightly.

"Farlan," he said softly, "Isabel…"

___________

Sasha had written a hope note onto a little rolled strip of bark. She sprinkled a little tinder inside, and set it afloat. She and Connie chuckled when the tinder sizzled and spat, pink and green. He hugged her. "Always got to make the most damn _noise_ , don't ya, Crazy Daisy?"

__________

Hanji stood with Erwin, near the lively town square so they could hear the musicians. The pub and the shops were open and bustling. Children chased one another around the streets, laughing and lighting fire snappers. Drums of spring cider bubbled over fires along the riverbank. 

Zoe had fashioned a little canoe. Into this, she placed a candle, a pinch of Erwin's best tobacco and and a little bouquet of cactus leaf. She set the canoe into the river. "To Mike," she raised her cider cup. Erwin clinked his mug against hers, "To Mike..and to all our absent friends."

__________

Levi's squad met with Hanji and Erwin around a drum of cider once all the candles had been released. As was tradition, everyone brought his or her own cup, to ensure that the cider would bring them luck during the coming year.

Armin had his little blue teacup. Eren snorted at him. "You can't drink cider out of _that,"_ he chided.

"Why not?"

Eren laughed. "Because it's a _mouse cup!_ You're a man, not a mouse. Here, give it to me."

He tried to grab the cup as Armin twisted away, and the blue teacup smashed onto the cobbles.

Levi's mouth twisted into a bemused smile. "Oops! Oh well, that's that I guess," his grey eyes seemed to hold a secret.

"Jaeger, best go into the potter's and buy him a new one. Maybe a red one. Nothing wrong with a red one."

The two young soldiers made their way to the potter's, engaged in some good-natured bickering.

Erwin appeared beside Levi then. "That's a coincidence," he said cheerfully, "I've a small token for you, Captain." 

He handed Levi a package, wrapped in brown paper.

"See," Erwin explained carefully, "I thought to myself that a larger cup might suit you better. One with a sturdier handle. A handle you might be willing to actually hold."

Levi stared at the new mug he had unwrapped. It was large, and of good weight. It was bone white, cleverly painted with black feathers all around the rim.

Erwin bent his head close to Levi's ear, risking a soft kiss in the darkness. 

"Keep that safe, Captain," he said tenderly. "and it will last you a very, very long time."


End file.
